The hard drive is most likely dying as Tom says. It definitely needs to be replaced. The clicking means that it can't correctly find the data tracks on the platter, and the head is homing to reindex to a known position and try again. If you want to try to recover data from it, there are a few tricks. If you are familiar with basics of PCs you can do this yourself.
1. Boot from floppy or CD that can access the file system on your disk.
-If it is Win 95 or 98 you can use a boot floppy from that OS. If it is Win2K/XP and was formatted as FAT, the same boot floppy will work.
-If it is Win2k/XP and NTFS formatted, you need a program called ERD Commander ($$) from WInternals. You can d/l the program from their site. This allows you to boot from floppy or CD and access the drive.
Then try to access the drive. Sometimes a failing drive with a non-bootable OS can still be accessed to backup files.
2. With more work, you can install the notebook drive into a standard desktop PC. You will need to disassemble the 'caddy' case on the drive, if it has one. You will have a generic 2.5" drive in your hands. Now buy a $15 install kit that provides you with an adapter cable and bracket to convert the micro IDE connector to a standard IDE connector/drive mount. Plug it into your desktop, preferably on the seconday channel with no other drives. That way you won't have to deal with figuring out Master/Slave jumper issues. Try to access the drive.
3. If you can get the drive to physically install and be recognized by the PC BIOS, but it is still unreadable, you have 2 more options:
- Put the drive in a plastic zip lock bag, evacuate as much air as possible, and put the drive in your refrigerator for about 2 hours, and try again. I AM NOT JOKING - THIS DOES WORK SOMETIMES. There are technical reasons that relate to magnetic fields as to why this may temporarily let the drive work until it heats up again. Keep the drive in the plastic bag, with as little air as possible, to prevent condensation on the drive as it warms up.
- Send it out to a data recovery service. It will cost you, but if the data is important they can recover almost anything.
Of course, there are no gurantees. This is one of my responsibilities where I work, and have done this many times over the years with about 60% success rate.
