Restoring my iBook G4 from an external drive

Hi everyone, I am hoping to get some tips here. I have just got my iBook returned from AppleCare, where it had its internal HD replaced. That in itself was a story, but I will focus on the present rather than the past!
The good news is that I always do regular back-ups and all of my data was saved on my LaCie 300GB external drive. I have the drive partitioned -- 70 GB is a bootable OS X 4.8 clone of my Macintosh HD (made using LaCie's SilverKeeper app), and the other 210 GB is pretty much just "data" in the form of music files.
I have tried using my Tiger install discs, starting up Disk Utility and doing an Erase and Restore (from the Bootable backup on the LaCie drive) and about 80% of the way through, I get a non-descript error message -- I think it's error -22 but I can't quite remember, even though I have tried this twice now. So I click OK, and then still in Disk Utility, I do a "Verify Disk" on my brand-spanking-new internal HD on the iBook, and it won't let me do it. Instead, it gives me this error message: "the underlying task reported failure on exit." In red, in the First Aid box, it tells me there is an "Invalid B-Tree node size." (I have no idea what any of this means.)
Strangely, though, when I restart the iBook from the internal HD, I am able to boot up. But there is obviously something wrong with the disk. What do I do? I'm able to boot up, and I'm obviously able to connect to the internet, and most of my data seems to have been copied onto the new internal HD, but obviously there is something wrong with the disk. I am afraid to use anything or save any data other than on the external, because things seem rather unstable.
Any ideas as to my next step?
I should add that before doing the Erase and Restore via Disk Utility, I first tried following the instructions at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106941 and although everything seemed to "work" fine, I had permissions issues -- suddenly I was unable to access items on my external HD when I plugged it in, because I did not have admin privileges, even though I have set up my account as being the Admin account.
I also tried using the Migration Assistant, but with no success, despite not needing any firmware updates on an iBook G4. It just froze and I couldn't do anything.
My next step is a phone call to AppleCare... but I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong? Or maybe I should be contacting LaCie and their SilverKeeper app support? Any suggestions / support greatly appreciated.

John, thanks again. But now I am confused.
I have run Disk Utility to check the external drive; it says it's fine.
I am not restoring the internal from a disk image. Here is what I have tried in Disk Utility (on my Tiger DVD):
-under "Restore", I am dragging my external "OS X Bootable" drive (on the partitioned external) into the "Source" slot,
-dragging my "Macintosh" (newly replaced internal) into the "Destination" slot,
-checking the box that says "Erase Destination".
-clicking "Restore"
-80% through, I get a non-descript error message.
-when I later try to verify the internal HD "Macintosh" (which has now been re-named "OS X Bootable"), it gives me the node error I mentioned earlier.
I'm not installing a fresh copy of Tiger via Erase and Restore. How do I do this? Or are we talking about the same thing? (Apologies if we are... as I said, I'm confused now.)
Rather than trying to copy
your entire Home folder (along with any possible
corrupted preference files) why not just drag and
drop your documents after the reinstall?
Doing this would mean I'd have to re-set all my hundreds of preferences. You have a point; perhaps my preference files are the corrupted ones. However, it's not just the documents I'm talking about. I'm talking about thousands of music files, playlists, and photo albums. And I'd have to re-install every application that doesn't come with OS X.
I did regular backups on my LaCie external, and tested it every time I backed up, to make sure I could always boot from my external if I needed to (which I can). I have a "perfect" clone on my external of everything I had before my internal crashed and needed to be replaced -- why isn't it simple enough to just put this back onto my internal? Isn't that the reason I did backups in the first place? Otherwise I would have just dropped and dragged only the data onto my external drive every week, rather than making a clone.
In theory, shouldn't I be able to do this? Restore from my external and copy everything there onto the internal? Unless, of course you are right and one of my preference files is the corrupt one. But if that is the case, wouldn't Disk Utility tell me that there is an error on the external, bootable copy?
What would you advise? Do you think I should just start from scratch, and re-install as you've advised -- new system, new directory, no third-party apps, no preferences?
<sigh>
iBook G4 1.2GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

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    If you have a Windows DVD: open the "sources" folder on the DVD and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
    IMPORTANT: If instead of a "install.wim" file, you have "install.esd", you can not continue this step by step guide. And an ESD file can not be converted into a WIM file. So you must get a version of the Windows installation DVD/ISO that has an install.wim file.
    Step 2: Clean, partition and format your external hard drive
    On your Windows installation or virtual machine, plug in your external hard drive (can be plugged using USB2, USB3 or Thunderbolt at this stage)
    Open the command prompt in administrator mode (cmd.exe). To run it in administrator mode, right click on cmd.exe > Run as admin.
    Type the following and hit enter to open the disk partitioner utility:
    diskpartType the following and hit enter to list your drives:
    list disk
    This will display a list of disks mounted on your computer or virtual machine. Make sure your drive is listed here before you continue.Identify the disk ID of your external hard drive. Replace # by your real external disk ID in the command below:
    select disk #Clean all partitions by typing the following (warning: this will erase all data from your external drive!):
    clean
    Create the boot parition by typing the following followed by the enter key:
    create partition primary size=350
    This will create a 350MB partition on your external driveFormat the partition in FAT32 by typing the following:
    format fs=fat32 quick
    Set this partition to active by typing:
    active
    Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter B in our example. If B is already used on your PC, replace B by any other available letter:
    assign letter=b
    Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Create the Windows installation partition using all the remaining space available on the external drive by typing the following:
    create partition primary
    Format the new partition in NTFS:
    format fs=ntfs quick
    Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter O in our example. If O is already used on your PC, replace O by any other available letter:
    assign letter=o
    Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Exit the disk partitioner utility by typing:
    exit
    Step 3: Deploy the Windows installation image
    Still using the command prompt in admin mode (you didn't close it, did you? ), locate the imagex.exe file mentioned in the "What you'll need" section and access its folder. In our example, we have put this file in C:\imagex\imagex.exe
    Type the following and hit enter (remember to replace o: with the letter you have chosen in the previous step):
    imagex.exe /apply C:\wim\install.wim 1 o:
    This will take some time. The Windows installation image is being deployed to your external driveOnce done, type the following to create the boot section (remember to replace o: and b: with the letters you've chosen in the previous step):
    o:\windows\system32\bcdboot o:\windows /f ALL /s b:
    If you get an error message saying that you can't run this program on your PC, then most probably you are running on a 32 bits installation of windows and you're trying to deploy a 64 bits install. This means you did not read the important notes in the beginning of this guide
    If you get an error message on the options that can be used with the BCDBOOT command, then it's because you're installing Windows 7, and the /f option is not supported. If that is the case, remove /f ALL from the command and retry.
    Step 4: Boot from your external drive and install Windows
    Plug in your external drive:
    If you've done all the previous steps from a Windows PC, unplug your external drive from your PC and plug it to your Mac, either on a USB3 or a Thunderbolt port.
    If you've done all the previous steps from your Mac using a Virtual Machine, ensure the external drive is plugged in to a USB3 or Thunderbolt port. Using USB2 should also work but you'll get very poor performance so I don't recommend doing that.
    Reboot your Mac and once the bootup sound is over, immediately press the ALT (option) key and release it only when the boot drives selection screen appears. If you did not get the boot drives selection screen, reboot and try again. The timing to press the ALT (option) key is quite short. It must not be too early or too late.
    On the boot selection screen, choose "Windows" using the arrow keys on your keyboard, then press enter.
    The Windows installation starts. Follow the on-screen instructions as normal. The installation program will restart your computer one or 2 times. Don't forget to press ALT (option) right after the bootup sound, and boot on Windows again each time to continue the installation.
    Step 5: Install bootcamp drivers
    Once the Windows installation is complete, plug in the USB stick where you stored the bootcamp drivers (see "what you'll need" section), open it and right click on "setup.exe" and select "Run as admin". Follow the on-screen instructions.If you have an error saying that you can't run this program on this PC, obviously you have installed a 32 bits version of Windows and the bootcamp drivers for your Mac are made for a 64 bits version. You have to restart the whole guide and make sure to get a 64 bits version of Windows this time!
    Once the bootcamp drivers are all installed, reboot and press ALT (option) after the bootup sound to boot on Windows again. And Voilà, you have Windows installed on your USB3/Thunderbolt drive running on your Mac.
    Now each time you want to boot on Windows, press and hold the ALT (option) key after the startup sound and select "Windows", then press Enter.

    Hi i'm trying to follow your guide, I installed windows 8 on bootcamp to do it planning to remove it after the operation is done, but i get stuck at part 3: every command i give to imagex i get a pop-up ftom windws asking how do I want to open this kind of file install.wim and imagex does nothing, what do i have to do to stop those pop-ups?

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