Question on installing to external hard drive?

[PupSpark]

I've read all of the guides to installing to an external hard drive, but they all require using the entire drive. Is there a possible way to use only one partition?

Thanks.

EDIT: By the way, I already screwed up the boot by trying to install it the same way one would install to an internal hard drive. So if you told me how to fix that as well, that would rock.

Thanks, again.

[utnubuuser]

hi -- to restore grub
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351

And - is it possible to shrink the partitions with gparted from the liveCD once the install has finished? (just a guess).