I partitioned the USB HDD using Gparted. I made the first partition (primary) as 8Gb and flagged it as bootable. I then used flash-knoppix to install to the USB HDD. When I rebooted the computer, the USB HDD was not in BIOS list of bootable devices. Interestingly, when I test the hard drive with a program called TestDisk, the drive shows as being bootable. I also plugged the hard drive into a different computer and it does not show up in the boot list for the BIOS of the other computer.

I used the flash-knoppix installerto install the Knoppix to the USB HDD and it installed syslinux. I don't know how to install grub4dos . Can that be done after installing with flash-knoppix and do you think that would cure the problem?

I understand that the Knoppix CD does not require the presence of an internal HDD although I notice a lot of HDD activity when Knoppix is loading. Not sure why!! Yes, I would want to have a persistent image, so I would not be wanting to format with reiserfs. Here is another interesting thing that I saw: I formatted the primary partition with reiserfs and rebooted the computer. The USB HDD showed up in the BIOS boot list so the problem mostly likely is related to the boot record.

Any suggestions will be helpful. Is there a well documented procedure that I could read that describes installing to a USB HDD? Most of what I find is not that easy to understand for a novice.

Thanks,
John