Does macbook have to have internal hard drive to boot?!

As i'm having partition problems with the aftermarket hard drive installed in my macbook, I am resigned to re-partitioning it to install SL and restoring from time machine.
However, the old stock hard drive I have is in a caddy, I kept it as a backup incase anything ever goes wrong, then I can just boot straight back into a copy of OSX 10.5, last night I managed to install SL on this drive etc,
So i'm wondering is it possible to boot the macbook from the USB Snow Leopard drive, then at the same time in a seperate caddie, re-partition the other hard drive so I can perform a fresh installation?
Complicated I know, but i've looked into other areas and it appears this is going to be the only way!
Comments, advice and suggestions welcome

I can confirm that the macbook does not need a internal hard drive to boot, I booted using the factory hard drive in a USB caddie, and then installed Snow Leopard via another USB caddie
thanks for the help Matt

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