Installing Windows from a separate HDD/partition


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Here is my issue/question.

Since originally testing out the Windows 7 beta I have been following along and trying out each new build. Rather than burn a DVD for each build, I instead partitioned off 4GB on a separate HDD (my system consists of a Raptor RAID0 array and a storage 640GB WD drive).

(Note: I do have several USB keys of the necessary capacity, but they have less than stellar transfer rates. Plus, even a premium key doesn't compare to an HDD's transfer rate.)

I then extracted the image to that drive and made it active using diskpart. Upon rebooting I select that drive from the boot menu and I am able to proceed with the Windows install. Unfortunately, even though I select a separate HDD for the Windows install it sees the 4GB partition as "System" and places the boot files on it. Now this doesn't cause problems with the operation of Windows, but it does cause complications. Since the 4GB drive is now marked as System it cannot be formatted from within Windows. In order for me to switch to a different version of Win7 it is necessary to selectively overwrite files in the partition or to format from outside Windows.

Up until recently that has been what I have been doing for each release; despite how inherently annoying it is. Yesterday I tried a different approach to install 7137. I formatted the 4GB partition, marked it as active AND readonly in diskpart and then attempted an install. Now, the Windows install sees both Disk 0 Partition 1 and Disk 1 Partition 2 as 'System' and upon selecting the former for install I received an error that installation could not proceed. Thinking that it was still trying to install to the 4GB partition I backed out of the installation to the repair console and use diskpart to remove the active attribute from the partition. The change was reflected in the install itself (it was now listed as Primary instead of System), but I was still unable to proceed further due to the same error.

My one last attempt at "unity" was to reboot using the DVD to get into the installation and proceed to use the repair console cmd prompt to launch the setup from the 4GB partition. 'Lo and behold this was successful. I was able to install from the partition and all System files were properly placed on the array.

Now... my question. What I'd like to do is either somehow control where Windows defaults its System files to, or create a minimal bootable USB key that will get me into the GUI repair console/setup (<2GB). A 'normal' DOS prompt is not capable of running the Windows installation.

How would I go about accomplishing this?

P.S: I apologize for the length of the above, but I felt it would be beneficial to have a certain measure of clarity in order to get this solved. ;)

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