Installing on an external drive

[Donniesito]

Hi everyone :-) A while ago I posted a question about installing Linux on a thumbdrive, but was never happy with it because of the limited space on my thumbdrive as well as problems with certain systems recognising it.
I have decided to try something different: I have an external USB 2.0 hard drive, and want to install Linux to it. The problem is GRUB. When I install, I do NOT want to install grub to the internal drive, as this would completely defeat the purpose of having a full linux install on an external if it relied on an internal installation of grub.
I know with most distros, there's a check you can remove during installation that will prevent GRUB being installed, but when I've tried it I still can't boot from the external. (The system I'm currently trying this on allows me the option of booting from an external USB device, so during the installation, why is my external drive not being made "bootable" ?
I know there must be a way to do this (obviously) so I turn to you all for some help with this issue. Remember, it has to be a fully self-contained installation on the external drive, so that I can boot to it no matter what system I have it attached to.
Thanks for the time and the help guys, I certainly do appreciate it!

-Don

[saikee]

How about taking a peep at this thread?

As far as I am aware you can get Grub into any external hard disk or pen drive.