The MS blurb is hilarious, because assuming this is your own system, I have serious doubts you're running fibre channel (FC) or have any HBA's installed (think "network" cards for SAN storage).
If we can assume the Windows error is useless, which is reasonable to assume (but not always), we have almost nothing to go on.
I mean, they can't even be bothered to tell you which disk is returning the io error? Bah. edit: the disk number and device name are displayed in the event viewer. What did the WD give you (besides sqawking noises I guess)?
Are you running a raid controller and if so, what raid are you using? I ask because windows desktop OS's (and older server versions too) are lazy and you will probably need to use the raid controller proprietary software to look at the controller and disks in more detail.
I don't have a lot of experience with local storage on windows but what I do know is that almost always requires 3rd party tools or, occasionally, windows plugins that aren't installed by default.
Do we know this isn't run of the mill bad sectors? I'll go back and read closer in case I missed more detail in the OP.
edit: How big is the disk? Can you just run the windows tool (scan disk? Something like that) to test the sectors? It will take forever, probably, but if it's just a few bad sectors the turning them off is an easy fix.
1. How old is the disk? Is this recent behaviour after a long period of no issues?
2. Is the disk starting to get "full"? How has this disk been utilized in the past? Lots of big data swapping, small files, slowly growing, permanent data, etc
If it's an old disk that is just starting to act up, danger will robinson (obviously). If it's a new one that has only recently started to fill up, might just be random chance upon a group of bad sectors.
I've been assuming it's an HD and not an SSD, is that correct?
edit2: Ok, found lots of others claiming that ms knowledge base article to be junk, so ignore it. Even if it identified the problem successfully the suggestion to increase your timeout setting seems seriously crazy.
Found an article that suggested using this tool:
CrystalDiskInfo to check for SMART errors. Can't vouch for the tool but it sounds like a good idea.
edit3: Found another recommendation for the tool above, but also found that the WD tool you mentioned should give you the same info for WD disks (obviously).