I was searching for a way to run SharePoint 2010 with PowerPivot on my laptop. My colleague Roel van Lisdonk told me about the possibility to run a virtual machine next to your regular OS using Hyper-V, the mayor advantage is you have all your hardware at your disposal without having the hassle of running your machine in dual boot. All you have to do is create a VHD file, reboot, run the installation disc, mount the VHD while installing and install on the vhd. When installation finished you can dual boot from the VHD file. Excellent !
This great post on ZDNET describes how it works, just follow it (use a Server 2008 R2 disc instead of Windows 7) and run SharePoint with all you hardware available:
How-to: Getting started with .VHD files in Windows 7
After installation use the Vidas Matelis install guide to install SharePoint 2010 with PowerPivot.
Happy SharePointing !