Starting up from external partitioned firewire drive

Hi all,
I have a lacie external firewire drive. I have it partitioned. One partition has a copy of OSX. If i start up on my main drive and set the "start up disk" preferences to the OSX partition on the external drive my G5 will start up on the OSX partition.
However, if i don't set the "start up disk" preferences to the partitioned firewire drive and i try holding down the "option" key during a cold start the G5 won't recognize the partitioned OSX as an option.
I want to have this external copy of OSX as an emergency start up using the "option" key during a cold start.
For the last two years i've used a non-partitioned external firewire drive with OSX installed as an emergency start up disk and the G5 has always recognized the drive while holding down the "option" key from a cold start.
Now that i have OSX on a partitioned external drive, a cold start holding down the "option" key won't recognize the external OSX.
Any ideas?
Also, if i'm not able to start up from this partitioned firewire drive, are there any special instructions for creating a DVD copy of OSX to use as an emergenct start up disk?
Paul

Allan,
I can boot fine from the external, partitioned firewire drive if i first set my "start up disk" preferences to the external drive.
But i if have my "system startup disk" preferences set to the internal drive (as it is normally), shut the machine down, then try a cold start holding down the "option" key, the G5 won't recognize the external drive (partitioned) as an optional system from which to start up from.
In the past, i've dedicated an entire external firewire drive (NOT partitioned) as my emergency start up disk and when i did a cold start of the G5 holding down the "option" key, the G5 had no problems recognizing the external (not partitioned) drive as an optional system for start up.
I'm wondering if by partitioning the external firewire drive i have some how rendered the external drive useless as an alternate start up device.
Questions, questions ...
Paul

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