On Sunday 20 February 2005 00:23, nishit shah wrote:

I'll be getting a freecom 160 GB 3.5" USB hard disk drive on which i have to install redhat linux 9 which, when needed , is connected to my Toshiba Satellite Laptop.

First check if the laptop bios can boot from a usb hard drive. Some can but only from a fat16 partition. I have not come across one which boots directly from a non fat16 usb drive. If yours can boot from a non fat16 partition then u have no problems. Install the regular way. Else create a small (minimum size will have to be 16MB - smaller ones involve too many complications) fat 16 partition (1st primary) and other linux partitions as per your needs. Make the fat16 partition bootable.Boot from cdrom with your distro. Install linux on the linux partitions in /dev/sda?. After completing the installations boot from your distro cd in rescue mode. In case of debian woody "rescbf24 root=/dev/sda5 does the job. Next run syslinux "syslinux /dev/sda". Mount the fat 16 partition "mount -t msdos /dev/sda1 /mnt". You should have a file ldlinux.sys in the fat16 partition. Create a syslinux.cfg file with the relevant entries. (read the syslinux man pages).This will give you various boot options. Copy your kernel image to the fat16 partition "cp /vmlinuz /mnt". Reboot. Alternately you may use loadlin from a dos partition, or install lilo or grub on the regular harddrive with an entry to boot from the usb disk.

rgds jtd