*****10 points**** external hard drive fell!?

Try inverting the drive by holding it upside down, or by laying it on its side to let gravity work against the read/write head(s) to pull it off of the platter(s). Do this while the drive is powered on. DO NOT shake the drive whatsoever. The clicking noise is the head(s) smacking the surface of the diskk platter(s) as they were probably bent during impact. Do not try any suggestions that ask you to place the drive in the freezer. You will increase your chances of destroying the drive.

UPDATE: You can get a strong magnet (rare earth magnets are the best or try a old speaker with the magnet still on it) and place on the drive for a couple of days to realign the magnetism on the platter(s) to destroy the data.

UPDATE2: Try tapping (firm tap with the palm of your hand) the side of the drive while its powered on. I know it sounds crazy, but I have successfully been able to get a drive to stop clicking long enough to pull precious data off. Since your not considering data recovery, then its worth a shot. Also, don't just lay it on its side, try other positions as well (hold the drive in your hand and move it in different directions in the air to see if it will stop clicking, if you find the sweet spot then you might have to have someone either hold it or you can one arm it to start copying data over to a working drive).

BEFORE you try to delete anything, find a Mac and try connecting the drive to that, if you are lucky it might show up on that, then you can look at the files. But as you say it has fallen from a great height so you are going to need a lot of luck...

You could delete everything if you can pass your drive through a degaussing coil. They were used in the past to clean magnetic tapes. Don't know where you will find one, but try a radio or tv station or possible a university. There is no guarantee that all files will have gone as you will have to be able to read it to make sure.

Failing that find the biggest magnet you can and pass it over the drive a few times.

It may just that the internal Fan is making a noise but it sounds more like you damaged a moving part inside your Hard drive, if you are able to disasseble the housing and check the plug's connecting the Hard Drive inside you might find a loose wire, if you can unplug the Hard Drive do so and try to install it inside a PC this is mend if the adaptor circutry connecting the Hard Drive is brocken.

Hard Drives are very delicate inside and if it is damaged there the only way to recover Data from the Plates is very expensive, and the costs a enormous.

So have a look and do what must be done.

If the hard disk is making clicking noises and doesn't spin up, then it is physically damaged you will have to go to a data recovery service that can open the hard disk and repair it or remove the platters. These types of companies usually deal with extremely critical corporate data and charge thousands of dollars for their services. They are very different than the run of the mill software based recovery companies that deal primarily with the "Ooops, I deleted some files I shouldn't have" type customers.

I would say that the drive is history. If you want to retrieve the data It will probably have to be professionally done. The hard drive consists of a spinning platter with a needle. The clicking sound you hear is the disc hitting the needle (not good). If you are worried about the recovery people seeing the contents ask what their privacy policy is. Hope you can get your info good luck .

Just take it to any data recovery service. You can also ring the drive company care so that they may help u 2 recover the data.

Take it to a data recovery place (google it) and they should be able to recover most of the data. If recovery fails, and there is no way to get your information, just take a baseball bat/brick/heavy blunt object and smash it to be 100% sure your data is gone.

Invest $10/ - and buy an enclosure.

Unscrew the drive.

Carefully transfer the content to new enclosure.

Re-connect to your computer.

Try it. It will work.

(Or unscrew and re-fit the content in old drive.)

Go to a data recovery service and ask them to recover your files.

Contact your drives manufacture, your best bet is to get their ideas on the situation.

There are indeed many different tricks to get a broken drive to work, but talk to the manufacturer first.