Hello Jack,
Thanks for your response.
I wasn't even aware of this issue... well, I think perhaps I have heard something about it... The Windows XP machine that the new WD 3TB drive is connected to doesn't have any problem accessing it. The drive came already formatted with NTFS.
Whether or not the XP machine can actually access the whole 3TB drive... I guess I don't really know. As I said, however, I haven't had any issue so far. The current issue is accessing the WD drive over the network. In fact, in particular, accessing it from the computer which I just installed Windows 7 on.
As far as the performance of the computer which has just been upgraded to Windows 7... actually, its performance is much better than it's ever been. In general, there's probably much truth to what you're saying... However, in this case, this HP Pavilion m7470n had 32-bit Windows Media Center installed on it, although it is a 64-bit machine. Perhaps because I now have a 64-bit operating system it seems to run a lot faster.
My sister gave me Windows 7 Ultimate for Christmas. I agree that buying a new machine would be the best thing... again, under otherwise nominal circumstances. However, I don't have a lot of money right now, and of my 3 desktop systems, the m7470n is the best candidate for upgrading to Windows 7. My other two desktops are also HP Pavilions... one has Windows ME on it and I don't think I could install Windows 7 on that, and with the other one, an a230n, its graphics card couldn't even run Aero according to the upgrade advisor... so,...
I agree that getting a new machine to host Windows 7 would ideally be the way to go, but I just don't have the money for that right now, and I do have Windows 7, which I got as a Christmas gift...
The problem hasn't, at least as yet, involved accessing the 3TB drive over the 2.2. limit... it's just all getting the permissions set correctly, perhaps making registry changes, etc. that'll reliably allow the other computers on the network, particularly the Windows 7 machine, to access the WD drive. And it's definitely a Windows problem... I used a bootable Acronis True Image CD to get my important files off of a corrupted main partition on the m7470n and sent them to the a230n over the network in preparation for wiping the corrupted main partition and installing Windows 7.
It's a Windows networking headache. I've had all kinds of problems reliably accessing the Windows ME machine over the network too(!) Actually, I have a BS in computer science, an A+, an MCP, and other certs... so, I have some idea of what I'm supposed to doing, and perhaps it's largely that I just don't have the patience for this sort of thing, but, at least to me, changes in the last several years seem to have made this an annoyingly complicated task.
Take care,
Paul