I thought 20 years ago zip drives would be a way to solve the issue.
i thought the same, too, luckily i've recently been able to recover most of my data from even the clickiest of my "dead" zip disks using a known good internal zip drive and some dos software called tiramisuzip. took q lot of searching to figure out how to "register" it so i could actually recover the data, though, but it can be done!
--- WWIVToss v.1.52
* Origin:
http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (11:1/101.0)