Install CentOS 6.2 on external USB portable hard drive?

Question

I've Windows XP installed on my laptop. And I've external 80 GB drive which I usually connect to my laptop through USB.

I want to install CentOS 6.2 on this external drive & it should also boot from that drive if I connect USB to laptop. Is this possible? If so, can any one provide me step by step instructions on how to install it?

I googled it but couldn't understand from many of the links...Some of the links mentioned to download CentOS liveCD but then they also said that there is a limit of writing only 4 GB of data.

I want to make use of entire 80GB of my external drive. Can any one tell me which file do I need to burn exactly from the below ISO?

http://mirror.cisp.com/CentOS/6.2/isos/x86_64/

Also, how to install it on my external drive step by step???

Thanks!

Solution

As long as your laptop can boot from USB, you can do a standard CentOS installation on the disk. It acts just the same as any other disk. You probably want to download the LiveCD image from that link you posted.

Comments

[Mike]

I read somewhere that if we install centos on external drive through the LiveCD ISO, it has certain limitation such as it won't allow more than 4 GB space to be utilized. Is that true?? I want to make use of entire disk space of my external hard drive. How can I do this?

[Mike]

Hey...LiveUSB cannot store file more than 4 GB...Please suggest something else...

[Mike]

It doesn't work. With LiveCD, there is limitation of 4GB persistence :-(

[Eli]

Wait, are you trying to put the livecd onto the disk? I was talking about installing CentOS on the disk, not as a live medium, actually running through the normal installer. Basically, burn CentOS to a CD, run the installer, and install it to the USB disk. That way you can use the entire disk for the install.