Can't get my Imac to boot from external HD

Hello everybody out there in the community,
while preparing my system to update to Lion, I noticed, that my Imac appears not to boot from an external HD, when selected. When I press option-key and select the clone HD, I nevertheless hear the booting from the internal HD. Tried with firewire and with USB connection to no avail. Both ext. HD's are formatted MAC OS extended (journaled), with a GUID partition.
Any tips, hints or ideas will be appreciated!
Thank you!
(Specs: 3,6 GHz Intel Core i5)

Selected the clone from Preferences > Startup, did a reboot and it still appears that the booting is from the internal HD. I mean it appears like  90% of the booting sound comes from the internal HD, there is only a bit of light flicker (LED) at the beginning and the end of the booting process on the external HD. The clone is named 'clone'.
I did booting from an external HD on my old G5 imac a good few times, it took a while longer and I coud hear and see the booting (LED) from external HD, so I have kind of a 'feeling' how it should be like.
The external HD starts up no problem. It appears on the desktop, I can select it under Preferences > Startup and it shows up during startup using option-key.
Having done the booting, selecting the external HD, I can dismount it and still can open programms and documents, so it ought to be the internal HD ?

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