Dead drive?

[illgiveumorality]

I've heard dead hard drives before in my lifetime, but most of them have had the loud clicking sound. My hard drive however fails to seek or something, meaning I can't rebuild the directory, I can't verify the directory, and the most prominent issue is I can't add music to my itunes library.
So, I shut it off. (it's an external)
Of course like most people, I have a bagillion songs on there, movies, personal recordings, files, passwords, work, applications, games, etc., so I'm willing to do anything to save my stuff.
I have a spare hard drive that I would have to buy an enclosure for to use, but I figure it'll back up my music library and I can save what is the most important. My question is: How should I go about this? I don't want to induce any further damage to this drive if it is in fact going.
It's only a year old, man

 

[Jay_2]

the DOS version of Ghost should be able to image it onto your second drive or a DVD

 

[Asgorath]

the DOS version of Ghost should be able to image it onto your second drive or a DVD

If the drive is failing (which it sounds like it is), DO NOT GHOST IT!

If there is some physical damage ghost will just make it worse as it will try to copy everything, assuming a good, healthy drive.

Go buy a copy of SpinRite. Do a data recovery pass on the drive (it will likely take a LONG time), then recover the files.

When a drive is failing don't just try and grab everything thinking you'll beat the drive to the punch. Be nice to the drive and only use tools designed to be easy on a dying drive.

If any of this doesn't make sense just reply back and we'll give you more help.