If you understand the title then you know what I want to do here. I've searched high and low, but what I find is either:

install live on memory stick (not a usb hdd with multiple paritions)

install linux to external hdd (config specific--not live)

What would really be helpful is a howto on converting a live-cd iso9660 image to a hard drive partition. The iso images use isolinux--I don't need that--I'm using grub from the mbr of the device.

I prefer Debian, but Debian-live seems to only include instructions for installing to a memory stick and it uses isolinux--it won't boot on my machine anyway--but grub will boot on my machine from the external hdd.

Thanks for the response Hern,

Looking at that page, it seems there are unnecessary complications going on. It says to install grub on the mbr, then syslinux, then copy an iso image.

grub-->syslinux-->ISO

What I want is something like this

grub(on mbr)-->kernel(on /dev/sdc1)