VL on external USB drive?

[retired1af]

I've pretty much given up trying to track down the parts needed to install an internal drive to my notebook and have reluctantly decided to get an external drive for the notebook. Before I order it, are there any pitfalls to installing VL on an external drive? It's not going to be a huge drive (probably around 250GB) and will be used strictly for VL.

One thing I'd like to do is have LILO on the external drive, but the notebook doesn't have an option to boot from a USB device. It's either the CD-ROM or Hard Drive. I suppose I could install LILO to the internal drive, make Windows the default OS for booting purposes (**shudder**) and just make sure the external drive is connected to the machine before selecting VL.

Any thoughts and suggestions appreciated.

[nightflier]

Granny wrote a howto on using the XP boot loader: http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=1073

Possible issue is the hardware detection. The external drive would need to show up in the same location every time (like /dev/sda or similar). You may need to keep the same configuration every time you boot (not move USB/Firewire plugs around).

[retired1af]

Possible issue is the hardware detection. The external drive would need to show up in the same location every time (like /dev/sda or similar). You may need to keep the same configuration every time you boot (not move USB/Firewire plugs around).

**CRY** Hardware detection is correct! I have the new drive hooked up, and windows sees it perfectly. Slap the VL6 (Standard) install CD in, it fires up, and it can't see /dev/sdb. However, if you bug out of the install and go to gpartd, it DOES see the USB drive. Is there a command string that I can give at the start of the install disk to tell it to find sdb1?

[retired1af]

Strange.... The GUI Installer just wouldn't see the external drive. Rebooted and tried the old installer and was able to install to the drive just fine. Well.... Sort of. Will start a new thread on that little issue.