Installing Mint 12 on a partitioned external hard drive?

[CodyF]

I want to be able to install Linux Mint on my external hard drive, but I can't seem to figure out how. I have a 50 GB partition set up, but every time I insert a boot disc and select "Install", nothing happens. I have tried installing Mint on a VM running Windows 7, but it just keeps white-screening.. So it's obviously something I'm doing wrong. The partition has nothing on it, so do I need to add a Windows-based OS first? I've looked on Google a few times, but it's all installation guides for BT5 and Ubuntu.

Thanks for any help!

[remoulder]

insert a boot disc and select "Install"

Are you trying to install this from Windows?

[CodyF]

The partition I'm trying to install on is completely blank.

[remoulder]

That's not what I asked! Please explain in more detail how you are trying to install.

[CodyF]

No I am not installing Mint over Windows. The partition is blank. These were my steps:

1. Burned the Mint 12 .iso to a disc and restarted my computer with it in the drive
2. Pressed F9 to get to the boot menu and choose to boot to my external hard drive
3. Selected the first option: "Install Now"
Then I just waited, and kept waiting for about 15 minutes. I eventually gave up and posted here. I'm not sure if there was a step I missed somewhere, or if it's just not possible to install to a partition. I at least know that the MD5 of my download, and the official one do match.

[remoulder]

2. Pressed F9 to get to the boot menu and choose to boot to my external hard drive
3. Selected the first option: "Install Now"

Not sure why you're doing this or what the 'Install now' option is as this is not how a mint installation works. You have to boot from the disc itself and run the installer from the desktop. The selection of drive to install to is done in the installer.