Hi, sorry it took so long to follow up on this topic but I was finally able to check out my surmises in my previous post.

Well, it appears I was correct that:

1.) SMB just WILL NOT WORK with a WIN 7/8 box that ONLY has homegroup enabled for sharing (with other WIN 7/8 boxes of course).
2.) If you share a folder or C$ on the windows box with user level access as is typical in home networks you can connect from Linux via
SMB shares (Samba) and:
3.) Yes, creating a user account on the windows box specifically for this purpose is a wise idea.

The scenario for all this was that my Windows drive just wouldn't boot anymore. HDD diagnostics revealed corrupted sectors in the boot area. Since I could still access and read other parts of the drive (i.e. my data I've spent years downloading, about 100GB) from KNOPPIX, I wanted to save it to available space on my sisters box before I reformatted my drive. BTW, KNOPPIX rules! I have been using it on and off since v3 for recovery purposes and lately as my main OS since my HDD started f****** up. This might seem like a no brainer to people who routinely use all sorts of different versions of Windows and LINUX but can be confusing to newbies who may have never used older versions of Windows and don't realize the homegroup function IS NOT NORMAL networking!

I tried searching the Debian and Ubuntu forums as well as this one for keyword "homegroup" and didn't get anything close to simple and concise about this subject.

ATTN: forum moderator, what do you think about making a sticky about my 3 points and maybe passing it along to your compatriates?