[plug] warning - cover your ears: can I get a full windoze install dvd from a recovery partition?

[Gavin Chester]

It seems sacrilegious to ask this here, I know, but hear me out ;-)

I want to know if anyone has experience and pointers on how can I get a 
full windoze install on dvd from a recovery partition (and or the 
original install)?  I've read of making recovery partitions into 
recovery discs, but don't think this will do the full kitchen sink 
effect that I want after blitzing windoze to the weeds on it's original 
partition.

I bought a laptop recently with the inevitable windoze tax preinstalled 
and set it up dual booting my distro of choice, as you do, fighting my 
usual method of completely blitzing windoze away never to darken my 
doorstep again. However, I also hate to throw out something that I've 
paid for so am reluctant to get rid of it this time around.

Thing is, I'd rather run it as a vm using virtualbox for those few times 
I must use a package that is windoze only. Can I:
1/ point virtualbox to that existing win7 install and instead run it as 
a vm on it's separate partition as it is now?
2/ make a full installation dvd of that windoze install to then wipe it 
and reinstall in a vm under Linux?


Any ideas?

Gavin