External hard drive clicking - any suggestions?

Kind of a weird situation here. My dad had an external hard drive (Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 250GB) that worked with his old computer, but when he got a new computer (XP machine) it didn't work anymore. He said it made a clicking sound "like a horse galloping" and stopped using it. He did not attempt to get any warranty service on it. At this point, I think it's about two years old. Recently, I offered to find out if it could be repaired/replaced. I plugged it into my computer (Vista machine) to see what the problem was and it worked fine, and I was able to access all the data. (Should have pulled it off at that time - oops! ) We ordered a "Y" cable to try to provide it with more power on his computer, and tried it again on his. Still didn't work. Now he's bought a new drive altogether, and asked me to transfer the data from the old drive. Plugged it in tonight, and now I get the galloping horse sound as well! It doesn't show up in My Computer at all, but it was recognized in Device Manager earlier tonight...not anymore. I checked Maxtor's warranty checker and it appears it's past warranty. I emailed them but still waiting on a reply. Does anyone have any experience with anything like this or know what is causing the clicking? At this point my main priority is just to get the data off the drive, IF it's even salvageable. Hopefully without having to take the drive out of the case and attempt to put it in the tower as a secondary drive. Thanks for the help!

It is plugged in with a power cord, so it should be getting plenty of power. I did everything exactly as I did when it worked, and get the clicking sound every time I try now. Any other possibilities?

The click of death normally means the drive is done. A data recovery service may be able to recover the data, but they aren't cheap.

usualy when a drive does nothing but click its because it cant find the zero spot on the drive platter and without that it cant calibrate and with out that it cant read any data off the platter. Your best bet is keep playing with it and if your lucky you might get it to run long enough to get your data off (i have had luck with that stradigy in the past).
good luck