[John Rogers]

Thee are several things to try if a hard drive stops working. If you try to access it and it just makes a clicking sound.....you're screwed. Then find a data recovery company and see if they'll grab the files, the cost and how long. NO clicking, put it in the freezer for a while to see if can let you access it. Does it make any noise I.E. disc spinning, ETC? As mentioned, use multiple drives.

I used to tell my students that it is not wise to trust a data backup company as they can be hacked, sell your files, look at your files then call the police!
John