Installing Ubuntu on external drive

[danielhaumann06]

Hey everyone I am very new to linux. I have Ubuntu 7.10 and I am wanting to install it on my external hard drive. I am currently running Vista on my laptop and I would like to have Ubuntu as an option. I am wanting to keep vista as my main OS but Need to learn to use Linux on the side. If anyone could give me a dumbed down step by step on how to do this I would really appreciate it. Thanks a ton.

[Zimmer]

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/category/install-to-usb-hard-drive/

May be what you are looking for..

and here,
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation#head-86a18ab57715d9bb5f0dfaba497a928e67cd73ed

[hulalula]

Hi,

I was able to install Ubuntu 8.04 onto my new external hard drive. Unfortunately, when I tried to reboot, it failed to mount.

Halp. What do I do now? Please reply in newbie speak. Like very slowly. Thanks.

[roscal]

You have to go into the Bios and change your boot option to
enable the machine to boot from a Usb device.
You may or may not have this option in your Bios.
Easiest way for you to dual boot, might be to start over.
Install windows again on a partition of your main drive.
Then install Ubuntu on the remaining raw partition.
When you boot up, you will have the option of which OS to boot to.
Now, you can just use your external drive for storage.
I would format the external as Fat 32, easily recognized by both OS.
Just my opinion. Hope it might help.:)

[hulalula]

Oh thanks Roscal. I am processing this info. Slowly.