Faulty external hard drive

Hi, I am a student at the North West University and I bought a 2 TB Western Digital external hard drive a little over a year ago from the Incredible Connection Megastore in Boksburg. Since I have bought it when I plug it in it has given me a notification that my external hard drive requires a scan because it is faulty, I however thought that it was a problem with my laptop itself because the device worked fine up until a few days ago, my external hard drive with 1.6 TB of my academic work, personal files and entertainment are all lost. When I received it there were some files on it with movies and series which I thought was standard on the device from the developers, but my perception now is that it was a faulty product that was brought back which Incredible Connection Boksburg just placed back on the shelves. I have spent hard earned money to buy the device and now I am sitting with a device that is broken and useless. This is bad management and dishonesty from the store itself. I am disappointed to say the least.