My Book Pro Edition WD5000E032 - powers up, spins, but makes clicking sound - Mac cannot read disk

[plpjhnsn]

Hi,

I have been using this WD external drive for backups since 2009.  Today, it started making a clicking sound as it was powering up.  The light comes on, the disk spins and this clicking sound repeats about 6 times at 10 second intervals.  This clinking suggests that a mechanical part is trying to engage. A message eventually appears on the desktop - "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.  Initialize   Ignore   Eject"  (choose one).

I suspect a broken part.  What is the likely source of this noise?  And what is the possibility that the disk can be repaired OR that the data on it can be recovered?

I use it with 2 computers - MacBook (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo), OS 10.6.8 ; and  iMac (3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo), OS 10.6.8.

Thanks

[Alucardx23]

Hi, when you hear a clicking sound is usually beyond do it your self repair, if you need to recover the data it will be with a professional data recovery company.