After some research, I installed Microsoft FixIt 50471 that disables Autorun for Windows 7 found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715.
Reading through that entire page, I never found anything about whether I can still safely transfer files between my computer, or access/double-click around inside the drive without invoking or activating Autorun in the process. I think it's disabled now, but I need some reassuring before I connect my drive and start using it like normal?
Also, is it safe to leave those autorun.inf files sitting dormant on the drive like that? I've found some programs that can delete them, except I own this little piece of hardware called CloudFTP that might need a specific autorun file in order to read the drive. Deleting them may not be a good idea in this case, but it may not pose a risk to my computer now that I ran the Fixit tool. That's what I'm hoping for anyway.