Dowloading linux to an external hard drive

I just purchased a 120 GB external hard drive and i set it up. I partitioned the drive and my computer recognized the drive. So i inserted the college linux iso cd and rebooted my computer. i followed the instructions and everything went great until i got to the part where i had to choose a partition. I selected search for drives and the only drive that came up was my old drive and it did not recognize my new drive. I have the drive turned on and everything seems to be fine. Its a western digital drive and its connected through my USB port. Any ideas on how to get it to recognize my hard drive?? Any help is appreciated.

I dont know the answer.

Maby try posting this in the general fourum. maby you'll get more help

Not all distributions have the capability to install to a USB drive. And even then some require changes to be able to boot form the drive. Don't know much about college linux. Does it offer an expert install mode?

BTW it is against the rules to post the same question in more the one forum.

I was meaning. move it!

As suggested try a distro that is able to install itself on a usb drive. Something with a more recfent kernel or Knoppix.

What versions do you know of that will install to a USB drive?? I have a pentium CPU if that makes a difference. It does not have an expert mode from what i could tell. What are the best places to download the ISO's for the versions is this site a good site or are there better sites. Thanks for the help.

Check LQ's Distro Reviews and then DistroWatch

ok well i have my disk partitioned to 60GB which is where i want to put linux. I read somewhere that i had to have my partition formatted to FAT32 of else it would not work it is currently formatted to FAT16 and if i want to reformat my only option is NTFS. So does it need to be FAT32 and if so is there software for windows that can let me do that.

This post is just to update whats going on with me and my issue. I chose to go with mandrake 10.1, I insert the CD and boot up then the press enter to install screen pops up. I hit enter and a screen pops up then goes away before i can read it, then a checking USB devices screen comes up and stays for a minute or two, and then another screen pops up and goes away very quickly. Then the installing screen comes up with the progress bar. It seems to be going fine until a Fatal Error Finishing Initializing screen pops up and thats as far as i get. Any ideas? Im a so i have absolutely no idea why its doing this except for im guessing theres something wrong with my external drive. An help is appereciated thank you.