Late 2012 Mini won't boot from ext HDD with 10.8

Having just replaced an early 2009 Mini with a later 2012 mini, I tried booting off an external HDD that is a backup with Mountain Lion 10.8 as the OS. I selected it to be the boot drive after holding down the option key, but the boot process never went beyond the white screen/Apple logo, even after waiting for minutes.
The external drive is in a Newer 3.5" enclosure with a FW800 port connected to the Mini via a FW800 cable. After booting from the internal drive I can view and change items in the 10.8 external drive. This drive previously booted fine from my old Mini.
[Note: This is not related to my earlier "Snow Leo won't boot" question.]
Thanks

The problem is the version on the external drive, if created
on the old Mini (infered from ""This drive previously booted
fine from my old Mini.") won't boot on the new Mini because
it lacks drivers that are not available on the general Mountain Lion
updates. Since the new Mini came out after 10.8.2, only the
version on it contains the proper drivers. Also, if the version
on the external drive is earlier than 10.8.2, it will never boot
as no Mac can boot to an OS older than it was shipped with.
Whenever 10.8.3 comes out, it will likely sync all current models again.

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Quote from: JLio01 on 28-October-14, 16:39:07
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http://geekswithblogs.net/ajames/archive/2009/08/12/take-an-imac-and-windows-7-r tm-ndash-and-have.aspx

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first of all: WELCOME TO THE DISCUSSIONS!
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Late 2012 Mini won't boot from ext HDD with 10.8

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