Clearing The Encryption On A Wd My Passport Ultra

Sharing knowledge with the hopes of helping someone else avoid the frustration…

I have a Western Digital My Passport Ultra Metal Edition external/portable hard drive that was sitting on a shelf for a while. The drive was encrypted using the WD Security software provided with the drive but no one knew the encryption passphrase. I didn't care about the data that was on it, I just wanted to wipe it and start over. The firmware of the drive prevents you from simply removing the partition and creating a new one when the drive has been encrypted. After a few frustrating hours, I figured out how to wipe the drive:

Run the WD Drive Utilities. (I'm using v1.3.0.18)
When prompted to unlock the drive, type a random password five times.
You will be informed that you typed "too many invalid passwords" and will then be prompted to erase the drive.

If you don't have the WD Drive Utilities, you can download them from the WD Support site…
http://support.wdc.com
Downloads > Product Downloads > WD Software > WD Drive Utilities for Windows