I can't get my Western Digital My Book Essential to work

Hello

Unfortunately , the clicking sound is most likely the disk head slamming into the platter. This is a major error and will not be fixable. You will need to replace the HDD.


If you intend to have the data on the drive recovered , I would suggest you not use it as the disk becomes more damaged the longer it is allowed to run like this.

Data recovery for this type of failure is extremely expensive and most recovery shops will send it away for recovery as they would need a 'clean room' and the repair consist of reconstructing the hard drive platters (the disk on which the data is stored) into another hard drive casing (not the external casing).

You could try removing the hard drive and connecting it directly to you computer via the sata port as this sometimes gives a window of time to remove the data.

If the drive is still under warranty , I would suggest sending it back to the reseller to have it replaced although they will probably not accept any liability for the lost data.

Hope this information , even though not solving your problem , is of use to you.

Feel free to contact me if you require more information.

Regards
Stephan