I just installed the OS Gnome Ubuntu onto a external hard drive connected by USB to my PC. I partitioned the hard drive to give 10GB to Ubuntu and left the rest as free space. After installing the OS I also installed GRUB to allow me to switch from OS to OS on startup, as I have Windows XP on my internal hard drive. I have a couple problems with this situation.


First, the only way I can access Ubuntu on the external hard drive is if I go into the BIOS during startup and change the order of hard drives that it boots up first. For some reason GRUB will only work when I boot up the external first in the BIOS, and when GRUB does come up, it doesn't even register that I have XP on my internal, it just sees that I have Ubuntu. So if I start up with the external hard drive connected, then I get GRUB and Ubuntu. If I start up my computer with the external disconnected, then I get Windows XP.


The second problem is that say I start up my comp and get XP, then connect my external after it has started, I can't see the external as being connected in XP at all. It makes the beeping noise that would usually go along with an external USB device being recognized, but other then that it doesn't show up in My Computer or anything. I was wondering if this was because I didn't format the left over space on the external to a specific format type, as in the partitioner I left the space that wasn't devoted to Ubuntu as FREE SPACE or if it was because there is an OS installed on the external and for some reason that means that it can't be read by windows. It used to be NTFS I think but is now free space and I can't see it in windows.


So if anybody has any idea to fix any of these problems, or can suggest a good free partition program or boot loader I would be much appreciative.