Hardware :: Hard Drive Stopped Mounting / Clicking Noises When Starting Up

Ok, i have a MacBook Pro, running OS 10.5.6, i have all the updates complete. My WD mybook is a 500G,.. the one with the blue circle button in the font [on/off button and blue ring light] you can see it at:

URL

this is my issue: Few days ago it just stopped mounting, I had to force reboot my computer and it hasnt come up sense.

Odd things: Disk Utilities reads that there is a drive connected, but wont mount nor give the options to mount and says that the total capacity=0 bytes [when connected by Firewire 400] when i connect it with USB2 to USB [the square USB to regular USB] it comes up the same but with total capacity = 2TB

STARTING UP: when the WD started up, or powers on, it turns on, the light goes around the ring as usual then it dims down and slowly illuminates the entire ring up and just stays all lit.

NOISES: It makes these odd [sort of soft] clicking noises when starting up,.. not sure if its done that all the time or if it just started,..

COMPUTER START UP: i have tried having it start up by powering everything down [computer and WD] and starting up the computer so the computer starts up the WD, which it does, but then it locks up my computer,..

Disk Utilities [DU]: shows the nice little yellow external WD drive icon on the left panel with the name WD [NOTE: it does not show the double icon, WD and then a sub icon with the drive name] and it wont eject the WD icon, even if the drive is no longer connected, it locks up DU and then if i try to force quit it locks up the mac.

It does give me the option to Partition/Erase and all the rest, but this is my main drive and i am a video editor,.. sort of NEED the files on the drive,.. so i am not all about erasing my data and loosing all my work.

NOTE: the Drive was never formatted, i know i was stupid not to do that,.. but we can move on from that, its in that FAT format, never partitioned or anything.

I have tried hooking it up to a PC running vista, it installed all the "New Software bs" and then never mounted or anything,.. [that was only with the USB, my pc doesnt have a firewire connection]

I have two newer WD 500G drives as well [the ones with the white bar light in the front] and they both come up fine. but if i try to link them up through the older one nothing happens [they dont mount]

what can i do to get the data off the drive? can i reformat the drive and still recover the data? If i throw it at the wall and bust it up,.. is the data still good?Was that too much details?