How can the case be opened?

I have a WD Elements 2TB 2,5" external harddisk which i formatted for the mac long time ago. it worked fine but all of a sudden the external harddrive mounts but after about 10 seconds the whole mac freezes and resets itself. I have tried it on other macs, same problem. I want to rescue the harddrive so I thought that maybe the controller is the problem.

has anyone else experienced the same problem?

how can the case be opened?

is the harddrive compatible with a serial ata connector?