Broken external HD (Freecom 250gb)

My external HD has died - the heads are constantly clicking. Given that I've foolishly transferred all my photos on to it I'm feeling rather sad. So I thought Time Machine would rescue me. Foolish me hadn't set it up either.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to recover files that were once on the mac but aren't anymore. Is there a clever way of doing it? Given that since I've deleted the files from the trash and have since saved documents etc to the Mac hard drive would software recovery programs work - they're pretty expensive?

thanks
Jason

Take a look here and decide for yourself.

Data Recovery Software, Hard Drive Data/File Recovery Software for Windows/Mac

Regards.

You can get a little creative and get a really long USB cable (12' max) or a long Firewire cable, and put the harddrive into a freezer, and let it sit for 10-15min, so it can get cold.

Plug it in and start to transfer the files over. This normally works if you don't have large amounts of files.

Reason it works (sometimes) is because the clicking normally has to do with the harddrive spinning up and getting warm.

This however is a good example of 'Your Mileage May Very' on trying this.

thanks folks - much appreciated.