I have this issue with my old WD Passport Essential (P/N: WDBAAA5000AD5 - 00) that it won't initialize from Disk Manager. I don't really care about the data on it anymore, I rather just get the disk working again.
Some info is that USB finds it, since I can choose to eject it safetly, it shows up under Disk Manager, it doesn't show up on My PC/Computer. When trying to initialize it I get the error Access is Denied. It also shows as unallocated.
It for some reason stopped working while connected to my brothers laptop when copying files to it.
I've tried several different softwares that restores data/partition and most gives error that it's bad sectors and similar. I've also tried some software to format it properly and those give error that the disk is write protected. Using WD's own software asks for a password which it didn't even have to begin with, since I've been using the disk as my movie/tvshow disk for my TV.
Some info is that USB finds it, since I can choose to eject it safetly, it shows up under Disk Manager, it doesn't show up on My PC/Computer. When trying to initialize it I get the error Access is Denied. It also shows as unallocated.
It for some reason stopped working while connected to my brothers laptop when copying files to it.
I've tried several different softwares that restores data/partition and most gives error that it's bad sectors and similar. I've also tried some software to format it properly and those give error that the disk is write protected. Using WD's own software asks for a password which it didn't even have to begin with, since I've been using the disk as my movie/tvshow disk for my TV.
I'd recommend you to run both the QUICK and EXTENDED test from WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics as it shouldn't require any password and it will let you know what is the health and SMART data status of the drive. You can find the software here: 
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