I need to know if Linux will boot from a removable USB drive. I want to buy a hard drive enclosure and put a 160GB in it then boot from it my linux dist. My HP Laptop does support booting from USB, but will linux do it without making a partition on my local hard drive?? If not, how would I go about this, maybe a boot CD?? Open for suggestions if not possible the easy way.

I read in another forum someone got slax booting from USB.

http://slax.linux-live.org/

Good Luck

Sounds like more pain than it's worth.
I would, instead, try a variety of live CD distros to see which you like, and boot from the CD while saving your configuration data to the removable USB drive along with any files you want to retain. Damn Small Linux has a variety of interesting options, and Kanotix is my pick for a fuller live distro. Linux runs respectably from a live CD, especially if you use a lightweight window manager.

i have beedn trying to install Windows from a usb cdrom without sucess yet, i cannot set boot from usb in BIOS and my internal drive is dead. i tried slax and it boot´s of the usb cdrom(it´s a standard IDE cdrom sitting in a USB HD box) i got a Win98 boot disk and edited it, chaged some files and if works nice :) i´m just lucky i guess. if intrested i could send you the boot disk via mail: dreamgliderEmailsatanazMenet

i dont need more spamm just change Email to att and Me to dot