Why does dying internal hard drive stop you booting from external hd

Why do I need an internal hard drive if I am booting from an external drive? Doesnt make sense,
Disk Utility warned me that the internal hard drive is failing. I have managed to change start up disks. I have an external bootable drive and even have an empty partition on it, "just in case" I need to install a brand new OS, but here I am waiting for local disks, and I cant access my back-up OS.
Why doesnt OSX just move past the dying faulty hard drive and get to work on the bootable disk? Basically here I am supposedly doing all the right things to cover for an emergency - I may as well have no backup strategy.
Am I missing a step, or is this how OSX works. Perhaps if you read the steps and outcomes below, you can see if there is more I need to do?
If I press "option" at start up, it only shows the internal drive, not recognising the external bootable drive.
fsck -f produced a looping "missing thread" message that went on for an hour or more so I stopped that.
I tried the dvd and command-c at start up, got through to the installer window and when I selected disk utility it hung, but no spinning ball, just nothing was happening.
The next attempt with th DVD i changed start up disk, this time it saw the external bootable drive and I thought I was in business again.
And here I am full circle, waiting for local disks.
Any thoughts most welcome.
btw, does the SMART issue a warning of a failing drive because a drive is definitely unsalvagable due to a mechanical fault? or is there a chance my drive is physiclly healthy but shows as Failing because it has unbelievable directory issues that Apple tools cannot solve - but DW could?
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

The Bombich forums have helped me troubleshoot the integrity of the bootable volumes on my external hard drive which I made using Carbon Copy Cloner. The clones are fine ie after I reset nvram after booting up via command-alt-o-f, the clones are now recognised when I boot up-alt. So it seems that there was nothing wrong with the bootable volumes on the external drive per se.
However, the Powerbook will still not boot up past "Waiting for local disks".
As it stands now, nobody seems to be able to give a reason why I cannot bypass the failed internal hard drive. I found a Knowledge base article from Apple saying Cmd-Alt-shift-delete at start-up should skip you to the next working volume hitched up to your computer, but that didn't work either.
I have a new internal HDD coming, so prior to installing it, the final part of the troubleshoot will be to reboot the PB without an internal HDD. I will see what happens and see what conclusions can be drawn from that. Unless anyone has a clue now from what I have posted?
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

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http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
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Hi all,
I was working on my 2009 MacBook Pro (MacBook Pro, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) with a number of windows open (Chrome, Word, Mail, Preview), but nothing really heavy. All of a sudden all the pages in Chrome went blank, Word documents would only open blank, and the icons in all Finder windows were blank. I tried to back up some important stuff that I hadn't had a chance to backup since last week, but the machine would not reconize my USB key or my WD external drive, also USB. I tried to shutdown the computer, but it would not properly shut down. I forced it down by holding the power button. After letting it sit about 10 minutes, I restarted it, only to get a folder with a question mark in it. I then tried to choose a startup disk by restarting and holding down the option-key. No luck. No disk was recognized. Then I restarted it and booted from the Snow Leopard install disk, holding down the C-key. I opened Disk Utility, but it did not find my hard drive among the disks connected to the computer, only the OS 10.6 install DVD. I have since shut down the computer and do not know what to do. I have done a lot of work that is not backed up, unfortunately, and would really appreciate any help with this issue.
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Message was edited by: apoluistor

Hmm... Since your macbook won't recognize it right now, I would reccomend that your remove the hard drive and connect it through your external HDD's connection... Which external drive do you have? I have a Seagate Go Flex in which I can remove the Connector that attaches the external HDD and I can use it to connect any hard drive with a Standard SATA connection.... This might be something you could try... If you ultimate goal is to recover certain files.... That is strange that it won't detect the Hard Drive..... unfortunately that usually means that the drive has failed.... It's happened to a number of my SSD's.... Good Luck... If your wondering what I was speaking of with the Seagate Go flex you can always YOUTUBE it, there are some good videos on how to do this... also if you have a Hard Drive reader that converts from Sata to USB you could also use that....

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Hello Nesquik,
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My MacBook Pro (2009 I think) suddenly started freezing recently. It would freeze for 10-15mins then work for 2 then freeze again. I opened the disc utility and attempted to verify disc- it failed and told me to restart and hold cmd+R which I did. From here I tried to scan the disc again, it told me to repair the disc. The repair failed.
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Message was edited by: windylove

Thank you for the reply. That was the best and most logical reply.
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You confirmed what I was thinking. Thanks

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Hey all,
I got my mid-2010 15" Macbook Pro back from the Apple store a few days ago (they had replaced a faulty logic board). As the repair forced me to back up my data, I decided it was a good time to upgrade the size of my hard drive.
I slapped a blank WD 1TB in there but when I went to boot off the Snow Leopard DVD, nothing happened--my computer froze on the gray screen with the Apple logo (curiously no spinning wheel populated). It was evident the DVD would eventually spin down as well. I then tried booting off a properly formatted 10.6.3 USB--same results (mind you, my iMac booted the USB with no problem).
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Anthony

S.U. -- Thanks for your help!
I actually got to the bottom of the problem, and it was a much simpler fix than I anticipated. The Snow Leopard DVD I was using was an older version than the one that shipped with my MacBook. As I don't know where that DVD is, I used target disk mode to install Snow Leopard on my MacBook, updated it, and am typing on it right now.
DrBurke--I hope your problem is as simple to solve as mine was.

Why does dying internal hard drive stop you booting from external hd

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