Well, that clicking sound is most likely the sound of the HD ready to die very soon. I would stop using it right away, it's within hours or days of never working again.
I doubt it is the floopy drive.
The machine is not worth the price of a new CDRW so why waste your money.
The old HD is not worth buying a enclosure for it.

Very simple, take the HD out of the old computer, look on the back of the HD for a little plastic jumper, it will be set on MA (master) take out that little plastic jumper and put it on the SL (slave) pins.
Take the cover off the newer computer and plug a IDE ribbon and power wire (they'll be extra ribbon wire & power plugs inside) into the old HD. You don't even have to mount the old HD, just let it lay on the floor or hang.
Start the computer up and go to My Computer, you should see Local Disk drive E: open the drive and copy whatever you want to save, paste it anywhere on drive C: like My Documents or anywhere that you want.

If you live close to the San Fernando Valley, run it on by and I'll transfer all your data in 5 minutes.

Whatever, don't be using that HD much, when the clicking starts, failure is not very far away.

If I read your post correctly, the floppy drive is clicking and the hard drive is not. That probably means the HD is fine and an enclosure could be a good solution. I purchased several enclosures from eBay and they all work great. I think I paid around $15 (including shipping) for the 3.5 inch enclosures. For the most part, the external drives act the same as an internal.

Also, IDE is becoming obsolete these days and your new computer may not support it. It will support a USB enclosure.

I've heard old floppies disks click, but never a floppy drive.
You're right, the new computer probably has sata and not ide, depending on how recent the model is.
An enclosure may be the way to go.

Wish I were in SoCal to get some help. I did buy a Nexstar 3 HD enclosure for an IDE HD. I got the old HD out of the crummy computer, put it into the enclosure. I followed the instructions as best I could. Attached the ribbon cable and the power cable. That was easy. The three pronged LED connection was a bit questionable, but I attached it and plugged the thing into the USB port of a newer computer(XP) and got no recognition of this drive. I checked the Device Manager and there seemed to be no problem. I also attached a smaller external drive to another USB port and it was immediately recognized and worked. I am now going to plug this Nexstar with my dinosaur drive (Western Digital Caviar 2850 AT Compatible Intelligent Drive)into another computer and see what happens. I'll report back later...Does anyone have any ideas????

Oh, I also decided to attached this old drive into the newer computer as an internal slave...but I cannot see any jumpers to switch on this drive!! drat

Well, the old drive will need a jumper to set it as a slave.
It's a small plastic thing, you almost need tweezers to remove it. Sometimes drives don't come with one. Snatch one off another harddrive or cd rom drive.

Okay. I plugged the Nexstar into another computer(XP) and and the computer detected new hardware but did not list it when I opened "MyComputer" so I could not open it. I went through "Add New Hardware" and "Computer Manager" and the ext. drive was not listed. I stuck in the miniCD and tried to update drivers..and that didn't work. Nexstar instructions say that the drive to be enclosed as an external HD should be a master...(Randy...I take it that would mean no plastic jumpers at all)

Is it at all possible that the power cord inside the new enclosure is not fitted tightly to the hard drive or could it be in backwards? Do you get the LED light on the enclosure to light when connected to your computer?

On older hard drives there was always the possibility that the ribbon cable could be put on wrong, have you made sure pin one is where the coloured strip on the ribbon cable is connected?

Sometimes frustration can cause us to not notice small errors, been there, done that myself often.

I am going out of what's left of my mind...
Rechecked the connections all is OK on that front. Tried to install drivers from miniCD that came with enclosure, but they were for Windows 98 only. Light does come on for enclosure when powered up. My computer sees a USB mass storage unit attached as it tells me this device would run better with a USB 2.00 port.(I have l.0, I guess) Device Mgr.says this device is there and working properly but it will not show up on "My Computer" to be accessed.

I even went into DOS prompt and at random typed in various drive letters and after G:(CDRW) nothing clicked in..and I got up to the letter R:!!

Just got bright idea...I am going to Nexstar website for clues...thanks for your input...keep it coming...bye for now.

Well, it should show up in My Computer as a separate drive.
Might right click My Computer> Manage> Storage> Disk Management (Local) and see if it gives you any clues.

trudging right along...I tried to make this old drive an internal slave drive to my computer..and my computer doesn't have an extra slot for another HD.. Back to the enclosure...
I have now tried to access this enclosure drive by switching the jumpers from single neutral, dual slave, dual master, and single std. In Slave mode...the drive shows up in the device mgr as a DISK and that it is working properly...but I still cannot access it with "My Computer"!

You don't need a slot to mount the harddrive, just let it hang or stick something under it if it doesn't reach the floor.

Recheck that IDE ribbon, the red line along the edge goes to the power plug side.

I guess it wouldn't hurt in Device Manager to right click the disk and update the driver, probably will tell you windows is using the most current drivers.

Randy...thanks for all your suggestions...but there was no ribbon cable or power plug for another hard drive inside my computer. I checked the IDE ribbon...red line goes to first pin position or pwr plug side. I've done all that Device mgr checking stuff..and it is supposedly all OK...

Tomorrow I will call Vantec the mfg of the enclosure...and I will also try to make this drive a slave in another desktop.

You could unplug the ribbon and power to the CD/DVD ROM and use them.
The ribbon to your main harddrive should have a connector in the middle of the wire.
Usually there are plenty of extra power plugs coming off the power supply.

Yay...I finally succeeded in making the old drive a slave to a newer computer and accessed the files on it. So thank you for the hardware help but now I have a software problem. so on to a new post.

Congratulations on getting your data off the old harddrive, that was the important thing.
I have a whole stack of old harddrives that used to click until one day they died and it said no disk found.

The instructions that came with my USB HD enclosure said to set the jumper to single drive (or take it out) for Western Digital drives. They recommend a jumper setting of Master for other HD manufactures. Its also a good idea to plug in the power first and make sure the hard drive disks are spinning before connecting it to a USB port.
The drive will not be recognised if the jumper is set to slave or cable select. Try using the single drive setting, with the jumper horizontal. If that doesn't work, try removing the jumper so the drive has no jumpers.

to JohnKR - I tried the jumpers in all positions...slave, horizontally, single, master, no jumper..and they all failed...BUT I didn't power up the enclosure before plugging into the USB port. I could, however, hear and feel the HD working. I called manufacturer (Vantec)..and they thought the problem was the HD. But it was not ultimately the HD, as it worked as a slave second HD to a newer computer AND I put it back into the original dinosaur computer and it is working again. I wonder if the problem in being recognized by as an external enclosed HD was that it was an MS-Dos drive!

Thanks for your input...