Problems installing MACOS on USB drive

Macbook Pro M4 trying to install mac OS (26.2) onto an external usb drive. Booting into Recovery mode, select Reinstall Mac OS. Then i select the volume in the external drive i want to install the OS on and the install starts. After several hours the macbook pro reboots from the internal drive. Restarted holding the Option key but it just boots into the internal drive. I go into System Settings/Startup Disk and click on the external volume that shows it has OS 26.2 on it. When I click restart I get an error:

The version of the MacOS on the selected disk needs to be reinstalled. This volume cannot be used since it has a secure token without any users.

I then booted into Recovery mode and launched Startup Security Utility and changed the allow external devices to ALWAYS ALLOW the changed the Security setting to the one with LESS Security. I then went into Disk Utility and erased the volume that had the problem. I am now trying the OS Reinstall on that same volume but it will take a couple if hours until I know if this works. If you have any tips, I’d appreciate it!