How to fix an external hard drive

clicking is very bad
would have to replace

You often can open the exiternal drive enclosure and just replace the drive that's inside.

Thanks... I guess that means I'll lose all my work???

Even with a replacement... is there any way possible to retrieve any files / work from the bad drive & transfer it onto a good drive???

(warning this may damage the hdd beyond recovery)
i did the following 1s and to my surprise it worked but you do it at your own risk.
im only making the suggestion as a last resort as its just as likely to kill your hdd as get it to work ... so it really is a last ditch effort...

you could put the hdd in an air tight bag and put it in the freezer for about an hour take it out and leave it at room temp for 20 mins or so to make sure theres no condensation, plug it in... it should work long enough to get all your work off...

the point of cooling it is that you get the metal to contract and if a read head is jammed (often causing a ticking sound) hopefully the metal parts shrinking will cause it to free up...
after you have done the above and 1s the hdd is running it should keep working, but 1s its turned off it's likely that it will not start again. EVER!

I also have heard of freezing a hard drive
It is an accepted methof of trying to recover files.