Correct. No journaling is available if the ext3 partition is treated like an ext2 partition. Idk about the e2fsck part, but you got it right. I haven't found anything better than ext2ifs for ext3 volumes in windows yet. Ext2ifs works like a dream for letting me access ext2/3 volumes, it usually does a good job of making me forget to look for something that will access the ext3 volume as an ext3 volume. Pretty much windows thinks i have ext2 volumes, and kubuntu knows i have ext3 volumes. Yes, journaling is a good thing, it helps minimize data corruption and makes things faster as well.
