External Hard drive troubles ?

My external hard drive fell off my desk while it was on. Now I ask you to read the WHOLE question before answering please. I plugged it in the first time and it made the clicking sound...I got worried. I unplugged it, and finally it worked and it was recognized, but I could not access my data without formatting it. I found some software, disc needed to be formatted so I tried to do that, and it keeps failing at the very last bit. The data on this external is VERY precious to me, but I am a college student and I don't have hundreds of dollars to get this thing fixed. Does anyone have any advice to remove the data? I Can always get another external....I can't replace my family pictures.