Perhaps I read your post wrongly, I am saying that I installed TC to my HDD, on there, I make my /home & /opt run from the HDD.
These are the options I use when installing - norestore - /opt=sda1 - laptop - /home=sda1 - lang=en - kmap=qwerty/uk
Then I remove opt & home from /opt/filetool.lst - & remove waitusb=5 from extlinux
Need to install kmaps.tcz - (& I install flit.tcz to monitor my laptop battery state - add it to your .xsession file).
Then add sudo loadkmap < /usr/share/kmap/qwerty/uk.kmap to .profile.
.......& that should have you up & running from a HDD.