Booting from FireWire

[Valrus]

I have a 60 gig external HD that I want to swap into my iMac. But I just came home for the summer, and, moron that I am, I forgot to bring my Mac OS X install CD with me. I want to swap the HD in while I'm here so I can have my dad's help. So my question is this: If I swap out my bootable 10gig HD and make it external, can I boot from it, since I can't install the system software on the 60 gig? Would the speed, etc. be acceptable?

Thanks to anyone who can help me out.

-the valrus

 

[rezba]

a collegue of mine uses two G4, one in his home, one at work. Both are booting with the same external FW HD (a 20g, I think), this without any problems or speed or performance issues.