CRUNCHY portable hard drive

I have a portable hard drive that I feel is going to fail soon. So of course I did the reasonable thing, and started copying the files over to a relatively new (1 or two years old, not used much) portable hard drive...

I plug them both into the computer and start the transfer. I walk away, come back a couple hours later, and notice the transfer is stuck. I figured the old drive bit the dust. But to my surprise, that one is still working - it's the new one that still pretends to be working (light turns on, it hums normally), but isn't.

It won't show up anymore when plugged in, and I've tried 3 computers. But the really strange thing is that it is CRUNCHY! Like a bag of chips! Just when I handle it normally, it crunches. I've never opened one of these before, but I assume it's toast, so I may just have to crack it open to find out what's going on...

But before I do that, any advice on how I could still save any files on there? Any safety/health concerns about opening it up?