Boot OSX from external USB harddisk

I was wrong by assuming that I can create an external bootable OSX partition by simply copying an existing bootable OSX partition to an USB drive. It turns out that I have to format the external drive in some special way using OSX Disk Utility based on this article.

But then even after following the instruction, I still couldn't get the USB harddisk to boot up OSX Leopard. In fact, along the way, I accidentally used the Boot Setup thing on 10.5 installation disc to altered the XP partition. Thank goodness that I have a backup partition near by, or else I will be extra pissed.

I tried using the Boot Setup thing, to properly install on the OSX parition on the external USB drive, but that caused the OSX in internal harddisk to become not bootable, and I have to use Acronis Disk Director to set the OSX partition to bootable parition again.

So then I thought, maybe I shouldn't use USB harddisk. Maybe I should use the Firewire harddisk. But somehow the Firewire harddisk enclosure that I have didn't work. Interestingly, it sort of caused me to try out the Firewire Solo, and found out that it actually work right out of the box! When I boot up OSX with Firewire Solo plugged in, the system recognition it right away and use it as the audio input and output. In fact, I also found that my DV camera works great with OSX by plugging in the DV camera right at the back of the Firewire Solo box, thus Daisy Chained the two Firewire devices.

So now that I tried so many options and still failed, I will try installing OSX 10.4.8 on the USB harddisk. I will also try and see if other application also prohibit me from installing the application on non-bootup disk.

Fortunately, it seem like not all the apps has to installed on the boot harddisk, so eventually I manually to squeezed more space out of my bootup disk.