I just wrote you quite a long story, so in case you don't have the patience to read it all, here's my recommendation for you (as echoed again at the very end):

I just wrote you quite a long story, so in case you don't have the patience to read it all, here's my recommendation for you (as echoed again at the very end): If you have no backup of your data, I recommend taking your drive to a special data recovery center. I think the data is still there, but they will need to physically remove the platters from the enclosure and place them in a new drive with a new circuit board. It will probably be quite expensive, but it sounds like it will be worth it for you. Ok, now my similar story: I had a remarkably similar thing happen to me a few months back so I can't remember exactly what happened, but basically it went like this: 15 years of life on old 750GB HD, wanted to transfer to new WD Passport 1TB. Plugged it into USB, also got annoyed by the pop-up software, tried disabling it, nothing. Didn't use the full-on encryption, but did use a password to access the drive (it was immediate, so I'm assuming no encryption actually took place). Anyway, then I realized it was annoying to always have to enter the password whenever plugging in the drive, and in any event, I just didn't like the "feeling" of some weird third party software -- the WD pop-up software -- managing a password for my critical data. So I elected to remove it. I don't remember whether I was successful, but what happened next was terrifying: I couldn't access my drive. Same as you, only the WD VCD software loaded but the drive itself wouldn't mount. This was on a modern MacBook Pro running the latest version of OS X btw. So I immediately tried booting up into Windows, and even tried an actual Windows box as well. Weirdly, the Mac and Windows device managers were able to see SOMETHING there, but they couldn't access it. The drive would spin up, but nothing else. Nada, zip. So I immediately took the drive back to the Apple store, and one of the employees walked in and before I could even tell him what happened, he said, "Let me guess, your brand new WD drive just failed?" Turns out they have a circuit board problem: after testing, they concluded mine had failed, and that apparently circuit board failures on those drives, if they happen at all, happen within the first 24 hours of use. So then I faced a dilemma: how do I get my money back and get rid of all my data? There was no way to format the drive before sending it back, and I wasn't going to entrust 15 years or more of my life to some employee at WD somewhere to just physically destroy the drive. Long story (not so) short, I elected to just swallow the $150 and keep the drive, i.e., keeping my personal data, well, personal, was worth $150 to me. So I went out and bought a Seagate and just recopied my data. As I said above, if you have no backup of your data, I recommend taking your drive to a special data recovery center. I think the data is still there, but they will need to physically remove the platters from the enclosure and place them in a new drive with a new circuit board. It will probably be quite expensive, but it sounds like it will be worth it for you. So sorry for what you've been through, I know how it feels...... :(