linuxgeek: [LINUX_Newbies] Is there a way to install to USB hard drive w/o it seeing internal hard drive?

I'm trying to help a friend with a P3 mobile 800 MHz with maximum RAM of 384 MB, it's a Compaq Presario 18XL4. When they gave it to me it only had 128 MB, I finally found an 8 chip 256 MB PC100 So-Dimm out of a Dell P4 laptop that would work in it.

So I found a few Linux Live CDs that would work, but some gave a vertical line down the screen including Lubuntu and Puppy based off Ubuntu files, my guess is the ATI card, but the latest LinuxMint LXDE 13 RC didn't have that problem. At least, Mint with it's hard disk tool let me know the hard drive may eventually fail, now it has WinXP Pro Sp3 and the M$ Security Essentials, which take up about half the 10 GB hard disk, so I put on Firefox, and the smallest word processor and spreadsheet from the Linux world to get them ready for Linux.

However, it would be nice if I could install Linux on an external hard drive without Grub putting on a boot manager on the internal hard drive...I use PLop from Hiren's Boot CD on mine, but is there another way? Most Linux Live CDs take so long to load on a computer this old, but if you're short on cash you learn to make do.

Thanks,
Joan in Reno

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