Basic Bootable partition/Recovery mode?

thanks :) ill take a look at that

im absolutely fine with having it as a dual boot option, just as long as I can boot to the other HDD which contains the setup files.

Actually if it's on another HD you should be able to boot it by simply changing the BIOS Boot Order to that HD, or at least have that as a backup method if Dual Boot fails.

yup exactly. I can easily switch the boot order but as long as I have some form of a bootsector on the other HDD, and I can boot into the environment to run setup from the HDD and boot into the environment which should also be on the HDD, then all is good :)

Looking forward to the response :)

You might want to PM SIW2 as he is not around as much lately.

Thanks!

just done.

well in the meantime, ive had no luck.

I've got Disk 1 partition 0 which has the contents of the Windows DVD
now I want an option on Disk 1 where I can boot to it or it will auto run setup.exe
Disk 0 will already have a Windows installation all working.

But in case of an issue or something, I want to be able to boot to Disk 1 to kick start the installation.

Follow the steps in Creating a Media-less Recovery / Installation Partition to make the install partition bootable with EasyBCD then reboot to see if it presents a menu. You can set timeout to 3-5 seconds.

Thanks. before getting your kind response I managed to do it some how but not sure how.
I set Disk 1 as an active partition and of course when I reboot, I couldn't boot into the OS anymore (silly me)
I then switched the disk boot order in the BIOS, then it magically seemed to boot from the recovery partition and was able to install Windows.
I now get the option for the main OS and Windows Setup (EMS Enabled)

Boot into Windows Setup to see if it will cue up to reinstall Windows correctly. Then you can bail out and reboot into Win7 to make sure both entries work correctly.