Boot XServe from External FW?...

I help run a group of 6 users on a network. We use G5 Xserve with and XRAID running 10.4.6. I'm trying to resolve a degraded server, but the workflow doesn't allow for the server do be down very often. I was looking to run the server from an external FW disk; allowing me to work on the drive modules without interrupting work.
What I've Done, 1) Created a bootable image of the server volume, 2)Successfully booted this volume to a G5 tower via the FW port. Then, 3) Connected the same FW drive to the XServe, 4) Attempted to boot the XServe from the FW drive via the front panel - this was not successful.
Is it possible to run the XServe from an external FW drive?
All comments welcome, Thanks!

1) How did I create the disk image? I used a utility called SuperDuper!
This is fine and the same process should work for the server as well.
2) Does the volume show up as a startup disk in System Preferences? Yes, but I have not "blessed" it.
If it shows up in the Startup Disk area then it is already 'blessed' which means your system sees it as bootable. Only blessed/bootable drives should show up in that spot. I was asking because it is possible to make non-blessed disk copies but that doesn't seem to be your problem.
Obviously this is coming back to running from the FW drive, and I haven't been able to do this successfully yet-so it is now my primary concern. I'm hoping that the front panel is "locked"-and "unlocking" it will allow a proper boot
This is stumper - it should be working. I was reviewing your post and you even used it to boot another machine so it's not some obscure ancient firewire chipset issue or anything. I doubt the Xserve is locked - check the front panel right next to the power button and see if the light is on or if the allen wrench dial is set to "locked". With all you've done it doesn't sound like it is but that will prevent booting off the optical or external drive.
As for this fw drive thing assuming the case is unlocked at this point I'm down to suggesting work-arounds like trying one of the other firewire ports or a new firewire drive and repeating the process. It sounds like you're doing it right, wish I could be of more help.
Going on from here: I'm sort-of concerned about the state of your drives if the RAID won't rebuild but at this point I would suggest starting from the optical drive, breaking the RAID by moving Drive 2 using either Disk Utility or the command line and wiping that drive. You can either try another fresh repair at that point and let the RAID 1 try to come-back from the dead or simply use Drive as your fresh system install target and decide on re-creating the RAID later.
Good luck,
=Tod

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