Install sabayon on an external hdd for duel boot with vista.

[JimyHigh]

Hi I'm pretty new to Sabayon and Linux, and I am trying to install Sabayon on my Western Digital external hdd so that I can duel boot between vista(internal) and Sabayon(external) I managed to get Sabayon installed on to the external but it would not boot. Later I tried again and it installed and gave me a grub hard disc error, so I backed up all of the files i had on vista through the live CD and redid vista.
Could some one please help me, I would really like to get this working so that I can bring my work with me where ever I go.
Guides or anything else would be very appreciated.
Thank you.

[throdon]

Is your external HDD USB, eSATA or something else?
If you have a USB external HDD it should be as easy as using your BIOS boot selector, switch to boot from usb and this should boot from your external HDD where you said Sabyon is installed.
If you have eSATA then do a google search for 'booting from eSATA' add 'sabayon' and/or 'gentoo' in the search field without the commas.
you should also read our wiki and check out the new user resources in the beginners thread on this forum. Lots of good info is contained here also search the forum(find wolfdens signature and click the link for the forum search plugin.)

[JimyHigh]

My external is usb, I had sabayon installed on that but it wouldn't boot so I erased and retried and I got an error do I fixed vista (hp boot discs) and I just got that finished, would installing so I could duel boot be easier to do if were to unplug my internal and run the install, to my external?
And would there be any risks of unplugging my internal? (while shut down of course)

[throdon]

I don't think dual booting on your internal HDD is recomended at this point. You have to use vista and it's tools to resize the windows partion. google "dual boot vista" add the words sabayon, gentoo, and linux to each individual search this will give you some links to do it the right way. read as many as you can. Hosing a computer is easy. read and understand what you are doing before you do it.

As for the external HDD when you install Sabayon it should be able to boot using the BIOS boot selector(should be F10 or similar, right when the BIOS screen shows up after a reboot.)
If Sabayon is installed on external HDD it should boot just like any other boot medium like your CD/DVD ROM, a USB thumb drive or your internal HDD

On the instalation to your external hard drive you should be able to run the installer and when you get to the partition editor assuming both your internal and external HDDs show up, uncheck every disk that shows up except the external HDD. when you install make sure you edit your swap to be twice the size of your ram. if 2GB of ram swap should be 4GB. search the forum and the wiki for partioning instructions.

[JimyHigh]

I have been trying for weeks and have exhausted all of the media I could find on the subject, so i thought that I should ask for help.
I have a western digital terabyte external and Im running vista home premium on the 400gb internal that came with my hp a6348x, amd anthlon dual processor 2.60GHz, 1918mbram.
I have tried a few different ways and all I have gotten is a grub hard disc error or it will just boot vista.
thank you for anything you can do to help.

[dunsurfin]

Not a good idea to have two threads running on the same subject.
viewtopic.php?f=86&t=19880&p=112704&hilit=dual+boot+vista#p112704