Is it possible for me to have my custom "disk" files on a seperate hard disk partition, boot that partition and install windows from the hard drive instead of cd/dvd?

if so, how?

thanks

Yes, it is. The partition would need to be bootable, of course, and you'd need at least the i386 directory from a Windows CD on the partition for it to work. You would then be able to boot to it (either with a boot floppy or CD) and run the winnt.exe setup routine from there.

It's not the most intuitive way to do it, but it works similarly to a CD-based setup, just from the hard disk. You could follow most advice from the unattended page here on MSFN to accomplish this, modifying any cd-based instructions to use your hard disk.

Also, be careful that your boot.ini is setup correctly. If you build this system then place the HD in another system, or remove your build drive, you'll crash because the boot.ini will reference a disk that is no longer present.

Been there, done that...