Help : external HDD failing

My WDD external HDD is failing, started acting a bit weird, event viewer was reporting bad blocks and now i have the drive plugged in but i cant access it (shows up in windows explorer but explorer hangs trying to access it). I cant run any WD diagnostic utilities because they wont detect the drive.

Its less than a year old, unbelivable (i didnt drop it or anything, was sitting safe and sound on my desk for months).

Is there any way to get the data back?

Okay it doesnt look like i can edit the support case i submitted. Weird.

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7588_102-516103/please-help-i-cannot-access-my-external-drive/

Several people in this thread are suggesting that its the WD interface that could be the problem (not being able to access the drive).

Is there any way to fix it on your own other than removing it from the case, since that voids warranty obviously…and if i send the disk back for RMA, WD likely wont help me to transfer the data over.