How can I search for entries that are enabled OR disabled?
I haven't tried this in php, but on the 'template' side there is an attribute called 'status' which you might try. I assume it would work in php as well.

$existing = craft()-&gt;elements-&gt;getCriteria($this-&gt;entry-&gt;elementType)-&gt;first(array(
    'someHandle' =&gt; 'someValue', 
    'status' =&gt; null
));


Default is 'live'; other values would be 'live', 'pending', 'expired', 'disabled', and null. Here's the docs for craft.entries.status. Let us know if it works.