How to recover data from non-mounting external drive?

OK- here is the pinch:
I have a Western Digital My Book 500GB Studio Edition which, though visible in Disk Utility, fails to mount, even when I try to do so via Disk Utility.  I have tried all the usual- unplugged, repowered-up, changed the order of Mac to external drive power-up/plug in etc etc.  It will not mount, end of.
Then I changed the housing, in case the issue was with that.  No change.
Then I had a friend use his PC's software to recover the data and he pulled off what appears to be ALL of it (it was close on being the 500GB as the drive was full) but it is not usuable and the Final Cut Pro and iMovie files I am needing to recover, appear to have been "downgraded" to MPEGs and MP4s (how IS that even possible?!) with a few MOVs of which the bulk are unreadable.  Oddly the clips are transitions only- no full three and a half minute (most of them are of music, songs of about that length) clips ever.
So- is there any chance that I can get software which will let me recover the content of the drive in a format which my MacBook Pro can use/understand?  Or is it a lost cause?
I had done some research on the topic here and found one thread which mentioned accessing the drive via the "Terminal" (sounds wonderful, if I knew what it was and how to use it) and correcting a read and write setting, copying its content over to the hard drive (well- that is not possible as I have a smaller internal than that drive is but no never mind) and getting the non-mounting drive to once more mount.
Could that ^ be something worth pursuing?  I cannot ask on the thread as it is from 2006 and, obviously, archived.
Hoping for some good news but am resigned almost.
Thank you for reading!

Did you try using a powered USB hub?
Mac's now cut off port powered drives if they draw too much current.
The external drive is a powered SATA, currently residing in a powered SATA to USB housing, no extensions.  No, the drive is actually just not supported anymore and was not mountable before.
Also use the Mac version of Data Rescue for file recovery, it knows the Mac file formats better than PC file format recovery.
I cannot recover anything with a Mac because the Mac will not read it.  It is not supported due to something my friend did with his PC:
This is only since he had a go at recovery.  Before then it was supported and appeared fine- just not mountable.
Obviously what happened is it took the MPEG portions of the Mac files as it understood that and discarded the rest.
Yes, I gathered that and explained as much to him.  It discarded the entire 120GB FCPro project file I kind of would like to recover. 
Not sure what now...
You had mentioned cloning/imaging etc. which you edited out.  Could that be something which can be done with a PC (I am not a PC user but I guess I could have a go) and then I use said image on the Mac to copy the bits I need to transfer to the Mac-formatted storage device?  Or- with a different Mac?  Not sure why that would make a difference but I am happy to try anything! 
Thank you to you both christopher rigby1 and ds store- means a lot not to be completely up the creek without a paddle.  I just wish that I had not been overwhelmed by the offer of assistance from a PC user and had had more of a go myself.  I suspect it would not be this difficult now.

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