SimpleTech portable drive got broked!

[carrot]

I was at my neighbors house helping her with a video, and it ended up that she wanted me to take the file home and burn it here. She brought out her little flashdrive/portable drive (I don't know what it is...) I was about to put it in the computer, when i dropped it. It only fell like 3 feet, but when i put it in the computer, it didn't work. It made this weird click-click-click-click-click etc.. noise that she said it hadn't made before.
Windows popped up and said: "found new hardware" "USB to IDE" then it changed to "USB mass storage device" and it stalled there with the clicky noise starting and stopping forever.
I looked in the Device manager and under the Disk Drive's Section, it showed one with a bunch of capital D's with lines through them (I attached a picture of what they look like) After all those funky symbols, it said Drive.
I tried it on another computer and it said the same thing.

It is a SimpleTech drive.
On the bottom, there is a sticker that has the following on it:
96500-41001-005
0511SO6333




So, anyway, did I screw up her drive completely?
Can it be fixed?
Can the data be salvaged?
Will it be expensive?

[azzey]

Dead dead dead.

It's possible to get the data off (usually it is) but there is probably little you can do except for the off chance that's it's a regular drive in an enclosure. There are always professional options depending on how valuable the data is.

[PrntRhd]

What size drive is it?
The thumb drives are cheap right now and sales are starting for Christmas making them even more affordable.

[carrot]

first of all, CRAP!
okay, now,
I have no idea what size it is. When I get a free second, I'll check with the S/N.
Until then, what methods are there of getting the data off?
Preferably that I dont have to pay for...

[Paul Komski]

Until then, what methods are there of getting the data off?

As long as the data is still accessible (as opposed to the file system) then utillities like GetDataBack for FAT or NTFS as appropriate (http://www.runtime.org) can be successful.

Pen drives are usually very resilient and have no moving parts inside them so the clicking is a bit of mystery unless this is an external hard drive, which are quite sensitive to being dropped.

If the latter is the case you may need to remove the hard drive inside it and try accessing it directly from an IDE cable using an IDE to 2.5" adapter if the drive is a 2.5" laptop type hard drive. Hard drive clicking would not bode well I'm afraid, though the fact that something is seen in Device Manager gives greater hope.