This is what I've done in the past:
Seal the HD inside a plastic bag in the driest environment you can find.
Leave it overnite in the freezer (there are other opinions, I'm just stating 
what/how has worked for me)
Have a puter ready and much better if you can hot-plug the thing. 

Have enough space for the FULL drive and get ddrescue or dd-rescue (they 
*ARE* different, and I have to research it every time). 

Lite candles, do your prayers, find you a goat to sacrifice, pull the HD out 
of the plastic bag, wrap it in paper towel in case you get some condensation 
and go for it.  Sometimes I keep it super-cool wrapped around some of those 
freezing gels.  I have never used dry ice but I have thought about it.  The 
explanation has to do with some internal tolerances being reduced to the 
point that it temporarily functions.  I try to disturb the drive as little 
as possible during the copy.  All this may be just VooDoo and sorcery, but 
again, it has worked for me.
YMMV...
ET 

PS: Free advice, can't sue me...   :) 

 

Eric Cope writes: 

> Hi all,
> I have a Western Digital 2.5" hard drive that spins up, but makes a
> terrible clicking sound at approximately 1Hz. The clicking is bad enough
> you can feel it when holding the drive. I did some reading on line, and its
> beyond my skillset. Does anyone know if affordable drive recovery? The data
> on this disk is not worth thousands, but may be worth 100s. 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Eric
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