Installing Leopard From An External Hard Drive

Hi everyone,
It's been a long journey trying to get my mac fixed after it started acting up and obviously since I am posting here it is not fixed yet. I need to re-install os x on an external drive and it is telling me that I have to erase everything on the disk before I can install it, but I need everything on the external hard drive and paid the stupid geek squad 100+ $ just to put my stuff on it. I guess my question is: Is there any way to not have to erase everything on my external hard drive to install os x properly again?
I have an iomega external drive if that makes a difference.

Having all your data backed up is the best thing you could have done before doing anything else (but you probably knew that).
Reinstalling form an external drive is sort of right - you may want to look here
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html
But if you're short on time you can insert the CD/DVD that came with your Mac and hold down the C key when you reboot. This will bot your Mac from that disk rather than your internal HD. Select the language once it boots, then choose DiskUtility from the Utilities menu. Try selecting the repair disk option. If that works, you'll be good to go. If that fails, you can choose the erase and install option. Once that [roces is complete, you can copy your data back to the internal HD.
However, if your internal HD is bad, or there is some other hardware problem, you'll be back where you started, and a call to Apple, an Apple Store, or an Apple repair shop may be in order.
hth
Jeff

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