Legomind - I know that the drive letter can be assigned in this way but I assumed that it would be re\assigned when transferring it back to the laptop. Either way, when the drive was in the laptop (before I ran the install routine and after Dos had loaded) I could see the I386 folder and I did a DIR to see all the files, I also went in there to run Smartdrv so I am pretty sure that all was OK although I am going through every step in my mind ready for the bext attempt!

The logic of the dual partition soumds very sensible to me and whilst I think I have an idea how to achieve it I'd definitely appreciate the step by step guide

As for the original problem, I think I have established that the drive itself is ok as I had installed windows completely whilst it was attached to my PC just to prove all was ok, which it was. It is also recognised perfrctly by both PCs and does at least go through the start up and copy files phase so it must be recognised by the BIOS.

I am at a bit of a loss