How can I recover data from a crashed external hard drive?

I have a Western Digital hard drive, and it's been ticking for a couple of days now, and now it won't even show up on My Computer. There is a TON of music on it, is there anyway to recover the data from it? I know ex HDDs are supposed to be for backups, but if they go bad, what's the point! My cousin, and now this, both Western Digitals, went bad. I will never buy a Western Digital product again.How can I recover data from a crashed external hard drive?
Never heard of an external hard drive "crashing"How can I recover data from a crashed external hard drive?
If it is ticking, then the the controller (circuit on the bottom of the drive) has probably gone. A few years ago I had a drive that was ticking, I managed to get hold of a drive of the same make and model. I swapped the controller from the donor drive to the clicking one, and I managed to get all the data off it. This kind of thing would not be a permanent solution to fix the drive but it may buy you the time to recover your data.

california

xbox 360