My Book Essential 3.0TB prevents Windows 7 from booting

It will prevent it because you have usb drive enabled as a startup boot option before the internal hard drive. It has happened to me plenty of times. You can do two things. Only plug your my book after windows loads or go into your boot options and make sure your INTERNAL hard drive is boot option number 1. 

The reason windows hangs is because when your computer is booting with your my book plugged in it keeps searching all 3tb for files. Its indexing and it will take awhile!

Hope this helps!