non booting full install on usb sdhc

I have an old laptop with a card reader using an 8GB SDHC. It has Windows 7 on an internal drive which I dont wont to adjust or ad the bootloader to unless its the last resort option. I have the BIOS option to boot from the card reader along with from a 1.6GB USB stick in a USB port. I am trying to be able to install linux full install from a live CD, currently Fedora 16 but have tried Linux Mint and Ubuntu, but the installs wont boot, the boot loader seems to be ignored and goes to the next device. I can install a liveCD to USB using unetbootin or universalusbinstaller and these boot but I want a full install. Fedora doesnt have persistence on a liveUSB install either so isnt very useful. I have tried lots of different partitioning methods and tried GPT and MBR options. I have tried rescatux,gparted,partedmagic and supergrub2 but still cant find a way to make the SDHC card bootable with a full install of any linux distro. This doesnt seem distro specific or partition method filesystem related so I can only workout so far that it might be the grub bootlaoder on the SDHC. Any info much appreciated.

Hello and Welcome.
Have you checked your BIOS to make sure the device (CD/DVD drive?) is set to boot first?

I have tried turning all other devices off in the BIOS to see if they are conflicting somehow with the card reader but it comes up with Operating system not found. It can boot with syslinux on it partitioned with FAT32 as used by the liveCD versions of any distro. But it wont boot after I have installed a full install from a live CD in the CD drive or from the USB stick onto the SDHC card. It just seems if the grub loader isnt working properly. I cannot find anywhere on the net aproblem that relates to this, only a not booting USB port because its not in the selection options of the BIOS. This isnt my problem. My card boots but not a full install of any distro using grub. Even supergrub2 on the disk doesnt find it to boot to.