I have a situation where I am trying to move some data from a Linux computer to a Windows computer. In all there is 700GB of data to move in about 1.5 million files, so I don't want to do this over the network.

My first thought was to use an external USB hard drive and create an NTFS partition and copy the files from the linux computer to mount on the Windows computer. After 4 days of copying without completion I abandoned that idea. I thought the NTFS might be slowing it down, so I created an EXT3 partition. 4 Days later it was still copying. I did some calculations and there was no way the USB 2.0 connection was that slow. I then used ddrescue and cloned the drive to be copied overnight and it took about 12 hours. i was able to mount the USB drive under Linux and access the files appropriately. The only problem is that I can not access that USB drive on my Windows 7 computer. I have tried Explore2fs, DiskInternals Linux Reader, and Ext2 Installable File System For Windows, but none of them is recognizing the external drive.

Can anyone give me some guidance on how to proceed with this?

Thank You

For 100 % I would suggest to split this bunch of data into smaller packs.
It will be less annoying to test different solutions.

Personally I would split it into 50 GB packets. (14 folders). I would copy those data via FAT32 formated external USB disk. I suppose that your problem is not only connected to size, but to number of files.
Try to pack (tar) 50 GB folders before sending them to remote disk, and unpack on destination PC.

BR

One critcal piece here is the file system, you need to select one that both machines read and write equally well. I second elonica.pl in recommending fat32.

I am confused about your reluctance to use network though. If I had second interfaces available, I might connect them with a crossover CAT-5e and configure the interfaces for an internal subnet and transfer using that connection. Who CARES how long it will take, it will take less time than you have already spent on media experiments.

Install the ext2fs on your Win system and you should be able to access the USB drive's contents with no problem.

Be aware that Windows convention for text files is that each line terminates with a \r\n sequence (which was reasonable when output went to a physical TTY, and you needed a carriage return and line feed to move the paper up one line and the type-head to the start of the next line). Anyhow, most MS text editors can be used to insert the needed \r characters. (Even "wordpad" can do it.) But, other than that, once you have the driver installed, and you configure the access, you should be "home free."

Note that the name implies only ext2 support, but I can read my ext4 files on my USB drives with no problem. (And, yes, two of those drives contain disk images made with dd.)

That last parenthetical remark raised a question in my mind: Why did you use ddrescue? If it was because you had drive problems, did you verify that you got a good image? (I.e., did you review the log and run fsck on each partition in the USB image?)

I think I'd have tried to compress it all to some compressed set or single file.

If the initial copy to an ext3 is also running slow, it most probably ain't a filesystem issue.
If it were me I'd attach the second drive internally and copy to it. When finished, pull it out and install it on the second machine.
And use NTFS - the best option by far IMHO. I haven't used an ext? IFS on Windoze in years.