How do i get data off a bad hard drive?

I have a dell laptop running vista home premium.
My hard drive crashed and i got it replaced, i was wondering how to get data off my old hard drive.
I have plugged the old hard drive into an external hard drive case and connected it to my computer via usb.
It appears in 'my computer' but when i click on it i can not open it and it sometimes freezes my laptop.
Is there and good hard drive recovery programs that are easy to use? or any other tips to help me?

 

The problem you face now is that if the hard drive did crash, this probably means there is a major mechanical fault with it, which means it will be hard to get the data off. Not impossible, but hard.

The question at this point is: How much do you value the data? As in how far would you be prepared to go or how much would you be prepared to pay to retrieve it?

 

How hard is it to get off? Its not high value data but it is annoying.
I wouldn't be prepared to pay alot as i am a poor student

 

It may cost you like 500-2500 to get the files back a professional data recovery place so I think your files are gone.

 

Before giving up, however, make sure you've taken the necessary first steps:

Check the jumpers on the drive, made sure they're set to 'secondary' or 'slave'...

Instead of using the external case, try installing the drive as a secondary on your IDE cable, or as a secondary SATA drive (whichever type it is) - the USB setup may be causing its own symptoms...

Check the manufacturer of the drive for any diagnostics tools they might offer...

There are some good recovery tools here, and since your drive hasn't been running, there's a good chance that no data has been overwritten...

My point is: why not try everything before spending big bucks, or just throwing away the drive?

 

Arrgghh - just realized this is a laptop, so the IDE/SATA thingy may be tough - but you get my drift...

 

Okay, let's stop running around in circles here and try and find out some more information.

How dead is the hard drive?

If you take the top off of the caddy, does the drive make any noise when you attempt to access it from Windows or when you plug the caddy in?