System on external drive

I want to install the system on an external drive, so as to have a portable bootable disk. This seems to work fine, but the installer creates non-admin accounts on the external drive, and I end up with no admin acount, and no ability to use the accounts on the main internal drive. The latter is what I would like, of course.
That is, I would like the system on the external drive to use the accounts on the internal one. Can this be done?
Thanks.

byomtov wrote:
When you say "empty" external, do you mean no system, or completely blank?
Yes, empty (erase it first).
Then you'll install Snow Leopard, select Do not transfer now and create a user account.   That will be an Admin account.  Then you can copy some things from the first (Admin) account on the internal HD.  
But as noted above, the Snow Leopard version of some apps, such as Mail, will not work with the Lion version of the files/folders.  
You can just copy some 3rd-party apps, but some that you got for Lion may not work on Snow Leopard.   Complex apps (that came with their own installers) will have to be reinstalled from the original discs (they put other files in other places, and won't work properly, if at all, unless you find and move them, too.  And some install "helper" apps that would need to be moved also.)
And no, you can't use Migration Assistant to go "backwards" and copy things from your Lion installation to your Snow Leopard volume.  That works great going "forwards" but there's no ability to go back.

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