Can I have a Distrabution suggestion
 

Distribution suggestion, for a external HD instead of a CD. I have seen the one distribution that can boot from a USB pen so I know there is got to be one for a HD.

im pretty sure many of the distro's out there can boot of this device.

but off the top of my head i'd day mandrake 10, on the first install it gave me the option of installing to sda1 (my usb pen) presuming it was a hard drive.

give it a go

What is your opinion of College Linux for some one new and doing these things for the first time?

Mandrake 10

i havent really had expierience with college linux, but would reccoment mandrake 10 for a newbie.
MDK is an inbetween distro. its not as brainless as xandros or lindows, but its got things you want, like a "control centre" to change your network settings, screen res and the rest

i will be changing from fedora to mandrake 10 when my torrent is done.