Leopard will not boot from Firewire HD

Hello,
The issue is this,
I have a Mac Mini G4 (M9687LL/A) and I am "trying" to install 10.5 on to a external firewire drive. The Drive is Acomdata 160GB Firewire dirve with a Partition Type of Apple Partition Map and is formated in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) So I boot off the Leopard install DVD and I install it to the firewire drive and all goes well. Then when I try to boot from this drive it will not boot off the FWHD. When I restart the mac and hold the option key to get the boot menu, I do not see the Firewire drive only the internal drive? So if someone can help me on this or is having the same issue let me know. Thanks

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Unfortunately, Acomdata's record on the matter isn't quite clean*:
http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug2.html
My recommendation, swap out the hard drive case and put another one in its place around the hard drive that is known to be compatible. The only two companies I know of are http://www.macsales.com/ and http://www.cooldrives.com/
There may be others you can write to on the above FAQ*. The problem is not all Firewire nor USB drives are bootable.
Another thing you may be running into is that if you want to use the keyboard to startup from an external drive, you may need an Apple keyboard to be certain the C or Option keys work. Option key should work if you have the right keyboard:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178
Finally, Time Machine is not a bootable backup, but does backup everything. Currently only Carbon Copy Cloner, and Apple's Disk Utility offer bootable backups of Leopard.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

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    CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0x0000000000000010, CR3: 0x0000000011803000, CR4: 0x0000000000000660
    RAX: 0x0000000000000001, RBX: 0xffffff8050e00000, RCX: 0xffffff801aa8eb00, RDX: 0xffffff80602dba38
    RSP: 0xffffff80602dbb60, RBP: 0xffffff80602dbb60, RSI: 0x0000000000000000, RDI: 0x0000000000000000
    R8:  0x0000000000000000, R9:  0x00000000000000ff, R10: 0xffffffffffffffff, R11: 0x00000000ffffffff
    R12: 0xffffff8050e00000, R13: 0x0000000000000000, R14: 0x0000000000000002, R15: 0x0000000000000000
    RFL: 0x0000000000010246, RIP: 0xffffff7f9bab8654, CS:  0x0000000000000008, SS:  0x0000000000000010
    Fault CR2: 0x0000000000000010, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x0

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    Sat Sep  1 17:13:12 2012
    panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801a4b7b95): Kernel trap at 0xffffff7f9bab8654, type 14=page fault, registers:
    CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0x0000000000000010, CR3: 0x0000000011803000, CR4: 0x0000000000000660
    RAX: 0x0000000000000001, RBX: 0xffffff8050e00000, RCX: 0xffffff801aa8eb00, RDX: 0xffffff80602dba38
    RSP: 0xffffff80602dbb60, RBP: 0xffffff80602dbb60, RSI: 0x0000000000000000, RDI: 0x0000000000000000
    R8:  0x0000000000000000, R9:  0x00000000000000ff, R10: 0xffffffffffffffff, R11: 0x00000000ffffffff
    R12: 0xffffff8050e00000, R13: 0x0000000000000000, R14: 0x0000000000000002, R15: 0x0000000000000000
    RFL: 0x0000000000010246, RIP: 0xffffff7f9bab8654, CS:  0x0000000000000008, SS:  0x0000000000000010
    Fault CR2: 0x0000000000000010, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x0
    Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
    0xffffff80602db800 : 0xffffff801a41d5f6
    0xffffff80602db870 : 0xffffff801a4b7b95
    0xffffff80602dba40 : 0xffffff801a4ce4ad
    0xffffff80602dba60 : 0xffffff7f9bab8654
    0xffffff80602dbb60 : 0xffffff7f9baa218c
    0xffffff80602dbbb0 : 0xffffff7f9baa20e2
    0xffffff80602dbbd0 : 0xffffff7f9ba73554
    0xffffff80602dbc00 : 0xffffff7f9aa8d470
    0xffffff80602dbc40 : 0xffffff7f9aa8d3df
    0xffffff80602dbc60 : 0xffffff7f9aa926ec
    0xffffff80602dbcf0 : 0xffffff7f9aa8af20
    0xffffff80602dbd20 : 0xffffff7f9aadacc7
    0xffffff80602dbd70 : 0xffffff801a833b9b
    0xffffff80602dbdc0 : 0xffffff801a862d57
    0xffffff80602dbe30 : 0xffffff801a497cef
    0xffffff80602dbe80 : 0xffffff801a420abd
    0xffffff80602dbeb0 : 0xffffff801a410448
    0xffffff80602dbf00 : 0xffffff801a4195fb
    0xffffff80602dbf70 : 0xffffff801a4a5ad6
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    com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl          1.0.33
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    com.apple.driver.XsanFilter          404
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    com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons          1.6
    com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS          1.9
    com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC          1.6
    com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC          1.6
    com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient          196.0.0
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    com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib          2.3.0f2
    com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily          1.8.9fc9
    com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib          1.6
    com.apple.kext.triggers          1.0
    com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily          10.0.6
    com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusPCI          1.0.10d0
    com.apple.driver.AppleBacklightExpert          1.0.4
    com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController          1.0.10d0
    com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal          8.0.0
    com.apple.NVDAResman          8.0.0
    com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP          2.2.5
    com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController          2.3.0f2
    com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily          2.3.0f2
    com.apple.iokit.IOSurface          86.0.2
    com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily          4.0.9f8
    com.apple.driver.AppleGraphicsControl          3.2.6
    com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport          2.3.4
    com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily          2.3.4
    com.apple.driver.AppleSMC          3.1.3d11
    com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginLegacy          1.0.0
    com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily          5.2.0d16
    com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver          5.0.0
    com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub          5.1.5
    com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite          5.0.0
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    com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily          1.7
    com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily          1.7.1
    com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily          1.7.1
    com.apple.iokit.IOATAPIProtocolTransport          3.5.0
    com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily          3.5.1
    com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily          4.5.5
    com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient          5.0.0
    com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family          500.15
    com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily          3.0
    com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily          2.2.0
    com.apple.iokit.IOATAFamily          2.5.1
    com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily          5.1.6
    com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime          1.6.1
    com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily          1.8.0
    com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily          1.1
    com.apple.security.sandbox          220
    com.apple.kext.AppleMatch          1.0.0d1
    com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet          7
    com.apple.driver.DiskImages          344
    com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily          1.8
    com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore          28.18
    com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform          1.6
    com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily          2.7
    com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily          1.4
    com.apple.kec.corecrypto          1.0
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