anyone know how I would do such a thing?
My friend told me that there was a program to clone stuff to another drive.. will that work here??

Based on the info you supplied earlier, here is one possible way to go:

1. Backup any important data
2. Boot from the Linux install disk
3. When you get to the partitioning options, delete the second NTFS partition (sda2)
4. Create a Linux partition (sda2)(~8GB) to be mounted at / , a swap partition (1GB), and a partition for shared data** (this can be FAT32) (use as much of the remaining space as you like---make this one a logical partition, so that you can add more later)
5. Install Linux to the new / partition (sda2). The installer will detect the Windows installation and automatically configure GRUB.

Once everything is working, you can make new partitions on your external drive for data and/or backup.

**The shared data partition can be mounted to anywhere you wish--eg to a folder (mountpoint) in your /home/username directory. FAT32 makes it easy to share with Windows, but you will not have the control over permissions that Linux offers. The approach I use is to have data partitions be ext3. I access these from Windows using the ext2fsd driver.

anyone know what i can do to move everything internal?

whoops sorry.. ok when im there how can i delete the linux partition on my external if i cant see it.???

No need to clone - everything looks like it should. I'm guessing your machine can't boot from an external device - this is a BIOS limitation.
Grub is in the MBR of the internal disk, but can't actually boot (beyond that) because the BIOS can't supply a path to the external at boot time.

Two choices I reckon;
- make some room on the internal disk for grub.
- make the external "self contained", and restore the Windoze loader to the (internal) MBR, and load Ubuntu from that.

First is probably best, but could get messy if your BIOS is old - grub may have to be located within the first 1024 cylinders.
Second means you can remove the external and still boot windows.

For you, I'd probably recommend the second - this is why I asked you to insert the USB stick before running those commands. I'd do it this wayThis installs grub to the root partition of your external, and copies the first sector to your USB stick. All in preparation for what follows.
Reboot your Windoze install CD, and hit <r> to get into Recovery console when it says so. From there run "fixmbr" (no quotes). Reboot, and you should get a normal Windoze boot sequence.
Now you need to add a Ubuntu option to your Windoze boot menu - copy the linux.bin file from your USB stick to your C:\ partition, then edit c:\boot.ini and add a line like this at the bottomAll done

Edit: was typing this when pix answered. Think of it as another possible option.

so i creat separate partitions for linux 'swap' and shared ?
is logical partition an option? meaning like a drop down menu or what?
how do i mount the shared partition..
just want to know..incase....thank you so much in advance.

during the Linux installation, you will have the option to do manual partitioning. When you create a partition, you have the option of making it primary or logical. Some partitioners also let you create an extended partition separately, but the typical thing is that the extended is automatically created when you make the first logical.

Note that you can just have 4 primary partitions---my suggestion was to give you more future flexibility.

Once you are setup, you can mount the shared partition by setting up /etc/fstab.

for the linux partition i cannot make it a primary....what format should i make the linux partition .....
and im assuming that the swap partition is either a linux-swap format?

ok nevermind...what format do i use for the linux partition...
and should i put it at the end or the beginning?

ok
so now its on the internal harddrive but when i log in it says
$Home/.dmrc file ignored....then it sayssomething about not being installed correctly or not enough disk space
GAH! im tired of this....what do i do please help

end or beginning--it doesn't matter.

The typical format is ext3.

yea i don't know what to do now im stuck. becasuse it doesnt even start in failsafe...

Did you get any errors or warnings during installation?

What is the final configuration you used?---e.g. the size of the Linux partition for /.

Please post the exact error messages.

According to Google, the .dmrc error is common and relates to permissions not being set, I had this happen once, but I don't remember how.

See if you can log in in single-user mode:
When the GRUB menu appears, hit escape to get to the text menu, then "e" for edit. Select the kernel line, and "e" again. Add the word "single" (no quotes) at the end of the line. hit enter and then "b" to boot.

If all else fails, simply re-install and watch for any hints of what might be happening.

I got no warning or any messages during installation..
for linux partition i set to 8000 MB and it changed to 8003MB
For Swap I put 1000 MB and it changed to 1003MB
And i put the rest as a logical fat 32 drive.....
When i get home i will post the messges.. and try single user mde..

User's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default Session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permissions. user's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users.

Thats the first message. The second one says:

Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds. If you have not logged yourself out this could mean that there is some installation problem or that you may be out of disk space. Try logging in with one of the failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem...

/etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp

/etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/X11R6/bin/sessreg -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h "" -l ":0" "jeremy"

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
Could not set mode 0700 on private per-user gnome configuration directory `/home/jeremy/.gnome2_private/': Operation not permitted