Setting up multiple boots

I am wanting to create a multiple boot system running Windows XP (gag!),
Debian Linux, and a small boot partition created from a specialty live Linux
CD. I have created multiple boot systems using Linux and Windows
installation CDs before, but I've never tried to crate a bootable option
from a live CD. I'll be running Debian Etch as the Linux system and Grubb
as the boot loader. I'll create the Windows partition and load Windows
first, of course, but:

1. Should I also create the specialty partityion prior to installing the
regular Linux partition and Grubb, or should I load Etch first and then edit
Grubb to add the specialty boot?

2. How should I copy the files to the partition? The CD does not mount any
physcial drives, but creates an initrd and a RAM drive to boot itself and
uncompress the files into. Should I only copy the isolinux directory from
the CD directly, then boot from the CD and copy all the directories from
the RAM drive, or should I just copy the files from within the RAM drive?
Not surprisingly, I don't see copy of the kernel, compressed or otherwise,
on the RAM drive.

3. To which file should I point Grubb; boot.cat, isolinux.bin, or bzImage?
The kernel loader splashes a menu across the screen allowing the user to
select an option before it times out and boots the default. Below are the
configuration files:

isolinux.cfg

default 1
prompt 1
timeout 120
display menu.txt
F1 menu.txt
F2 help.txt
label 1
kernel bzImage
append initrd=initramfs.gz vga=788
label 2
kernel bzImage
append ide=nodma hdc=bswap hdd=bswap initrd=initramfs.gz vga=788
label 3
kernel bzImage
append initrd=initramfs.gz
label 4
kernel bzImage
append ide=nodma hdc=bswap hdd=bswap initrd=initramfs.gz


menu.txt:

splash.lss


Choose Menu Option

1) (For Series 1,2,3) - Graphic Mode (Default)
2) Byte Swap Enabled (Series 1 partition access) - Graphic Mode
3) (For Series 1,2,3) - Text Mode
4) Byte Swap Enabled (Series 1 partition access) - Text Mode

[F1-Main] [F2-Help]

4. I'm not sure what result I will get when I want to mount the hard drive
partition to /. This is a patched kernel (I didn't patch it), so I don't
know if it will use mtab or fstab in /etc. I do want to be able to modify
the contents of the file system, but the ordinary behavior is to mount the
RAM disk onto / and then uncompress all the files onto the RAM drive. What
would happen if I just remove the "initrd" option from the isolinux.cfg file
and get rid of the "prompt" and "display" calls (and of course set the
"timeout" variable to a much smaller value)? Clearly if Grubb calls
bzImage rather than boot.cat or isolinux.bin (see queswtion 3), it will
bypass the menu altogether, but I'm skeptical this will work. I would think
a compressed kernel image has to be uncompressed by an external utility, and
I don't think a boot loader like Grubb qualifies. Of course I could easily
be wrong, which is why I'm asking. Is uncompressing the bzImage file
externally, copying the resulting file to the partition, and pointing grubb
to it a reasonable thing to do?