Working with Ext2/3/4 HDs on your Windows PC
On my home I have an Ubuntu x64 server that serves as a file and media server (I have PS3 Media Server, Serviio, Flexget, Deluge, SABnzbd, Virtualbox, pyLoad, FlexRAID and a few other scripts such us periscope and SortTV) and 3 HDs (1 x 1TB and 2 x 2TB) and a small 250GB NTFS formated external HD which is used as a transfer disk between my office and my home.
Since I think that EXT3 is much better (in file resilience terms) than NTFS I wanted to have this HD formated in EXT3. But you cannot read/write and EXT3 disk on Windows.
Until I found ext2fsd project. Ext2fsd is a driver that you can install on your Windows PC (I have installed it on Windows 7 and Windows XP with no problem) and you can access (read/write) your ext2/3/4 partitions or disks, natively, without any other third party tool.
You install it, you setup Auto mount points, you reboot and you can read, write and delete any file or folder on your Linux partition/disk just using Windows Explorer!
The installation is straightforward. You just have to enable the ability to have write access on you Linux disk at the installation (if you don't then you will only have read access)
P.S. If you are looking for a way to format a drive in EXT3 under Windows, then you should either use gParted or Acronis Disk Director.