So I decided to install Debian on an old external hard drive because that was just what I had laying around. I installed it alongside windows but I chose to install the bootloader on the external drive also so I wouldn't have the hassle of the bootloader if I unplugged the drive. Now when I choose to boot into that drive from the bios it just boots into windows.
Try disconnecting the windows drive just to check that the bootloader actually installed to the external drive.
yeah I just tried that and it gave me the no bootable form of media error so I am guessing what you are going to tell me to do next is do a fresh install so I will do that tomorrow since it is kinda late today.
Yeah try a fresh install, maybe even try it without the windows disk connected.
You can repair this issue without a reinstall but it will consist of booting into your install media and then
chrooting (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_root#Using_chroot)
into your install drive and re-configuring / installing your bootloader of choice
There is another way, depending if your install media uses grub(2) or efi to boot
grub or grub2 you can use it to find and boot your install
like this: https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/776643-how-to-rescue-a-non-booting-grub-2-on-linux/
both ways hold important lessons in system recovery. Sometimes we don't have the luxury / patience ;) at that moment in time to try these two methods to success. Good for you to know your options!
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
alright so I did eventually get it working by doing a fresh install without my windows drive plugged in. I think the problem was that when I partitioned the disk I left the bootable flag off the first time but I don't know that could be useless for all I know. I did try the 2 recovery options mentioned by @Try_Angle. The first one just confused me because the link you provided just gave a bunch of arch commands and I couldn't figure out the debian equivalents and the second one I couldn't do because the debian installer doesn't use grub and I didn't have anything else just laying around but anyway it is working now so thanks for the help.
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I'm glad you at least took a look at the options! They are possible but I understand. If you'd like, next time post more detailed hang-ups for the method you choose to proceed....
This is a great response to your similar situation.
It doesn't use grub?! could you point me to the url you used for your iso download please :)
Yeah I just got the iso from the debian site but who knows I could just be missing something very obvious, it seems like something I would do
https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst