WD Elements 2TB Not Initialized (And etc.)

Hey everyone. I've seen that you guys are a lot more technical than I tend to see in other forums when lurking, so I'm going here instead of the WD forums (because their official techs just want you to mail the drive in without trying anything).

System: Lenovo T60, Win 8, Win 7 on secondary partition, WD Elements 2TB External HDD.

Lets assume for the meantime that unless worst comes to worst, I don't have access to a desktop, and I DO want to keep the files on the drive.

1. So here's my issue! I have a WD Elements 2TB external HDD.
2. After a few months of usage, the drive no longer shows up in My Computer.
3. It still appears in the Device Manager, but now under a different name: "Ext HDD 1021"
4. I've tried replacing the USB cord, and the power supply as well (I have an unrelated, functional external enclosure that also uses a 12V 1.5A Pos-In power supply that fit perfectly, and the broken drive did all the same things as it did with the old power supply)
5. It appears in Safely Remove Hardware under the same name
6. In the Disk Management utility, as soon as I open it up it has a popup that says "You must initialize the disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it"
7. When I select "MBR" at this window, it says Access Denied.
8. I'm following the FAQ's here and I get to step 6, the rest after this one don't apply.
9. Using Windows 8's command line in admin mode, diskpart told me that the disk exists, it knows the correct size of the disk, but it says there are no partitions when I type "List Partitions"
10. I'm using TestDisk 6.13 in order to try to recreate the MBR (I don't know how to use the windows commands to FixMBR on an external drive), and right now it's on the Quick Search for Partitions step. Issue is, it says "Read Error at _____" and it's been saying the same cylinder number for Read Error as it has for Analyse Cylinder since the start of the quick search.
11. Right now it's at 25%, but since about 10-15% the disk has stopped spinning. The disk does spin when I plug the external into the laptop after having unplugged it.

I need advice on what to do next. My ideas:

1. Get linux live disk, use G-Parted to check if linux can see the partition, and try to activate it. Or first try to make it read/write instead of just read, then activate it.
2. Replace the power supply with an official one from WD Support
3. Get a replacement drive
4. Napalm

 

Well, I went to linux to try to figure it out, and got the answer I wanted. The device is fubar. Here's what we did in Ubuntu, to all those who might look this thread up and wonder.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=12206421

 

i didn't get how did you solve the problem. i have been trying to get a solution for past months still no luck at all.

 

He didn't solve the problem. He was able, with Ubuntu Forum's assistance, to determine that his hard drive had 1418 sector errors and was beyond repair. If it was still under warranty, he'd get a warranty replacement from WD. If not, he'd have to purchase a new HD.

 

i am having the same problem.. unfortunately i don't have warranty on it .. anyways thanks for the help