Ach ok. This is the most concise answer you're going to find on the internet for this one.
Dr-Kiev is correct. It is hardware encrypted. I signed up to this forum just to post this. Here is the story of what I went through...
A drive was given to me and they told me "I dropped it and the USB port is pushed in. Can you fix it. I means everything to me." I was given the Western Digital MyBook Essentials.
Single usb port on the back is the only interface. I scoffed and said yeah sure. Firstly, I open the thing up. There are no special places to insert screwdrivers to losen it nicely. You pretty much pry very gently around the seam. The usb port has been ripped off the board and taken a lot of copper with it.
Next I separated the hard drive from it's controller and put it into a new hard drive caddy. Just a cheapy sata to USB dock. No dice. On my mac, OSX says the drive needs to be initialized. On windows a similar problem. I can see the presence of the drive in Device Manager and to some extent in the Storage Manager Snap-in, but that's it. Linux sees the device as well, but attempts to mount the drive under any of the possible filesystem types fail. None of the operating systems could format or partition or do anything to this drive.
So I go back to the board and decide to start trying to reattach the usb port. The copper it so badly damaged you need a microscope and incredibly fine detail soldering iron to even attempt this. But I give it a go with exactly those tools. No dice. I just didn't have a steady enough hand and there were a few surface mount components ripped off the board already so when it didn't work I figured it was cactus and went back to looking how to crack it.
Thats when I see this forum and what Dr-Kiev said. I take another look at the board and see the Initio IC on there. So yeah. It's encrypted via hardware as well as software. Even if I buy a new board, I'm fairly certain these things are uniquely encrypted. Now I'm not sure, so don't give up hope, but it would be pointless otherwise. I just didn't want to wait for delivery of a new board and neither did the client.
So I finally develop a method that I can redo the soldering with my hand tremor and still pull it off. I solder everything where I think it was supposed to lead to. Only 4 wires required. 5volt+ GND- Data+ and Data-. After the reattach, I put a spare drive onto it to test it before I try with the clients drive. No luck. On the mac, OSX tells me the drive needs to be initialized but also informs me of another drive being there and not being disconnected properly. So it's seeing the onboard firmware virtual CD drive as well as my hdd. But again, I can't format partition initialize or anything.
At about this point I took a gamble and put the clients drive back in and BAM. It came up. Accessible and everything. In my wisdom I assembled all this on the edge of the desk precariously balanced. I started it copying, the cat jumped up on my desk and knocked it all off and tore up the board so insanely much more. A few hours later I was able to put it back together but had badly burnt and destroyed the board. I'm copying the data off it as I type. It's ugly. Real ugly. But screw paying Western Digital $700 to "attempt recovery" or anyone else $1400 for the same.
This is what the control board should look like:
When I've finished copying the data off this board, I'll try to get a photo of it as it is now and post it. F*CK THIS THING! After I'm done, I will throw the board in the bin and replace it with a generic interface. Then reformat the drive and put data back on.
I would recommend to stay the hell away from encrypted drives. Especially hardware ones. NEVER BUY THIS DRIVE. EVER. STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!!!
IMPORTANT NOTE: I don't know if changing the board for a new one would have worked. No one on the net has done it yet. I didn't have time to wait to try it. I don't think it would work (just because of how the thing behaved when I tested it) , but please someone try it if thats your only other option and let us all know. If you know the interface board is dead, don't run those data recovery tools on the drive (I don't think they could actually do any damage, but best be safe). If it's just the USB port that's ripped off. Get it put back on by someone much better than me. It took well over 10 hours of my life. Explain the problem with the hardware encryption and how important it is that you get THAT EXACT BOARD repaired.