The StarTech PEXSAT32 along with the Western Digital WD30EZRX 3 TB hard drive made worked like a charm in my HP Compaq dc7100 CMT and will allow me to use this solid machine for a few more years as a small home office server, mainly used to share files. Some friends were very skeptical about the controller card approach and recommended that I go with an external USB HDD case, but quite frankly, not only was I afraid to loose too much speed, I did not like the idea of have an external HDD lying around the computer at all times. I converted the drive to GPT (as opposed to MBR) and could enjoy a nice 3 TB partition. I installed the controller, turned on the computer, installed the drivers with the supplied CD (I run Windows 2003 Serve, but apparently no drivers are needed for Windows 7), powered off the computer, installed the drive, powered on the computer and voilĂ !, Windows could see the entire 3 TB of my drive. I went ahead and purchased a PCI Express controller card (a StarTech PEXSAT32 - a 2 port SATA 6 Gbps SATA Controller under $40). Anyways, since I found a working solution by myself, I thought I would come back and share my findings with other users who may be faced with a similar situation. Some time has passed since I posted my original message, but unfortunately nobody had anything to share.
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