If using an external hard drive (for initial install) instead of CD or USB, does one use the LIVE CD method or the USB method? I want to partition my HD and have it running from there, not on the external HD drive.

how are you plugging in the ex hdd?
what brand is it, not all external HDD are equal.

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You could usefrom a live disk to re-partition your main disk. Followed by installing from the live disk.
So no external disk is needed.

Note that unless you are modifying existing partitions, you can probably do everything during the install from the live disk.

Hi,

you can boot it like you are booting a USB. The most important part is to make the partition on the external HD and make it bootable. I think you can do that with GPartEd.

You have to ensure that you put the image of the bootable CD/DVD on the first partition on the external and make it bootable.

But, I kind of agree with BW-userx. I have seen some external HD's that do not work when booted this way. You have to have a bootloader somewhere in order to point to the partition on the external.

Anyway, give it a try and we'll see.

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If you have the Grub2 bootloader available, you should be able to put the iso of your Linux system you want to install on a partition on either an internal or external drive and manually create an entry in grub.cfg, boot it to install to another drive or partition. Grub2 has this capability but not all Linux distributions can be booted this way. You don't indicate which you are planning to use. You may also be able to use unetbootin to do a 'frugal' install which puts the Live CD image on a current partition which you can boot from.

https://sourceforge.net/p/unetbootin/wiki/installmodes/

What is the "it" you are referring to? The Live CD installer or the actual installed system?

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don't gorget to click
to give credit due to where credit is due
thanks
that goes for the lot.

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Kind of depends on what you have on the computer to being with.

If you have blank hard drive then just use the distro's installer and be sure that your install files and boot loader choice go on the correct drive.

If you have a current OS then you may need to make room for your install.

You'd have to set up the external HDD with a bootloader in order to do it. Then set the computer's BIOS or UEFI to boot from that drive.

The easiest way to set up the drive with a bootloader, without an existing installation, would likely be to use UNetBootin (https://www.google.com/search?q=unet...utf-8&oe=utf-8) or Rufus (https://rufus.akeo.ie/) and just point it to the external HDD as one would for a USB Flash Drive.

Edit: Just be sure you want to erase that drive because everything on it will be erased.

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Seagate
plugged in via usb port

Linux normally "see's" storage devices, in the same way as it would, see a normal hard drive (an internal HDD). Just make sure when you install said distro, that it installs to your external drive, instead of your internal HDD.

Best of luck with it!

If it's connected with a usb docking station, it's just a storage device and the usb method should work. As in dd the image to the whole of the device. Although a HDD is probably overkill for that, but should work. A small usb drive, or memory card and reader would probably make more sense, but either should work for the bootable device that is the installer. You lose data on the drive as that method overwrites the partition table.

If you're wanting to install to the external HDD just boot off of another device that has the installer. Or use one of the many linux in linux installation methods. Like arch-chroot, debootstrap, and others.