External Hardrive mounted, bootable, but never opens

I searched through the hardware and peripherals forum but couldn't find an answer to this problem.
I have a Power Book G4 800 MHz running OS x 10.3.9.
I replaced the original 40GB internal Hard Drive with an 80GB hard drive and
had the old 40GB one converted into an external HD. I want to be able
to boot up from the external drive, so using Disk Utility, I successfully restored
the internal Hard Drive system to the external back up Hard Drive.
I have it connected using fire wire.
According to Disk Utility it is mounted and bootable and is available in the start-up disc preference pane. But when I opt to reboot from it, although the Apple appears and the wheel spins, it never opens. I've let it spin as long as ten minutes.

I am posting the info I get about each drive in disk utility's
info pane, hoping someone more knowledgeable than I can figure out what's wrong. Any and all suggestions would be much appreciated.
I've repaired permissions on both drives many times. I've done all the
disconnect this cable, power down and connect this etc. nothing works.
I'm stuck. All suggestions appreciated. Thanks

If there are guests who might have a solution to this problem, please
email me at bustaminni@gmail.com.

Below is the info from Disk Utility:

INTERNAL HARD DRIVE
Name : Hitachi HTS541680J9AT00
Type : Disk
Disk Identifier : disk0
Media Name : Hitachi HTS541680J9AT00 Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : ATA
Connection ID : Device 0
IO Content : Apple_partition_scheme
Device Tree : mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : No
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : Yes
Location : Internal
Total Capacity : 74.5 GB (80,026,361,856 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. status : Verified
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 0

INTERNAL HARD DRIVE
Name : HD
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk0s10
Mount Point : /
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : ATA
IO Content : Apple_HFS
Device Tree : mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:10
Writable : Yes
Capacity : 74.4 GB (79,891,202,048 Bytes)
Free Space : 41.0 GB (43,998,220,288 Bytes)
Used : 33.4 GB (35,885,690,880 Bytes)
Number of Files : 200,860
Number of Folders : 49,452
Permissions Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Permissions Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 10

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE
Name : Other World Computing
Type : Disk
Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : IBM-IC25 N040ATCS04-0 Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : FireWire
Connection ID : 512384766902794
IO Content : Apple_partition_scheme
Device Tree : fw/node@1d202e005020a/sbp-2@c000/@0:0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : No
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : Yes
Location : External
Total Capacity : 37.3 GB (40,007,761,920 Bytes)
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE
Name : HD_backup
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk2s5
Mount Point : /Volumes/HD_backup
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : FireWire
IO Content : Apple_HFS
Device Tree : fw/node@1d202e005020a/sbp-2@c000/@0:5
Writable : Yes
Capacity : 37.3 GB (40,007,283,712 Bytes)
Free Space : 3.8 GB (4,079,366,144 Bytes)
Used : 33.5 GB (35,924,832,256 Bytes)
Number of Files : 200,818
Number of Folders : 49,441
Permissions Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Permissions Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 5
 
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So let it continue to try. 10 minutes is not really excessive - but I would consider that 30 minutes would be a little too long to wait for the first boot.
If you run a Repair Disk from your Disk Utility (different from Repair Disk Permissions), and try to repair that external hard drive - what is the result?
 
Oh shoot, my message disappeared when I thanked you.
Here goes....before when I tried to use disk repair, it said the disk couldn't be repaired because it could not be unmounted. I had no idea what that meant....however, when
you asked me what happened when I did that, I went back to do it again to get the right wording of the error message and this time
it repaired it saying everything appeared to be okay. So now I am going to try and reboot
again to see what happens. Thanks so much for your help.

another subject entirely, but
would you have any idea why text formatting does not work when I'm posting.
I picked it in control panels, but it doesn't work when I post? I can't even include your quote in my response.

will try to reboot and let you know what happens....
 
Well I let the wheel turn for 30 minutes. It never opened. Stayed gray the whole time. I'm at a loss for what to do next.
Just the fact that DU repair was able to run, when before I got that error message when I would try to run it, makes me think that little by little things are adjusting.
Do you think it could have anything to do with the firewire cable?
another cable came with the hard drive case. It's a USB 2.0 certified A-B cable. I have no idea, but maybe I'll try it.

Any ideas about what to do next?

UPDATE;
I tried the a-b cable and held down the option key and it appeared as an option, after I picked it the apple came up and then a minute later the wheel started and then a few minutes after that a cancel icon, the circle with the line through it, replaced the apple icon. I'm back to zero.
 
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The 'Prohibited' symbol (that circle with a line through it) usually will mean that something in the system software has been moved, or deleted.
It can also mean that (somehow) the operating system version is too old for your PowerBook to boot properly. That seems unlikely if you have simply restored to that disk from your internal hard drive.
There's some good info on this page - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1411?viewlocale=en_US
I think you will need to reinstall OS X on that drive, using the Archive & Install option.
Or, you could simply erase that external hard drive, and try that restore process again.
I do have one concern for you. The external hard drive is really small, and you are nearly filling up that hard drive with that restore. If you boot to that external drive, then temp files can easily take up the rest of the space - especially if you don't have much RAM memory in your PowerBook.
 
The prohibit symbol only happened with the a-b cable, not with the firewire...for whatever that's worth.
I read that page and there is some good info there. I already got rid of the start up items that were lurking in system preferences. I'll go back and check some more.
I think you're right about reinstalling os x on there...I'm getting a copy this week...my old one stopped working. The external harddrive has 3 GB of space left on it. Can temp. items use that much space? I really wanted to use it to run disk utility off of because my Panther disks stopped working, and to have a backup HD just in case. Now that I'm getting a new set of discs, it's not all that important, but I'd like to figure it out anyway.
I think I will go back and restore again. Thanks again for your help.

UPDATE:
It worked. I did a new restore and at first it wouldn't open....but when I enabled permissions it worked beautifully. I'm working off the backup HD right now. The reason it wasn't opening before was because (and I figured this out from the link you gave me) I had moved and/or renamed a couple of folders on the backup HD. That was a no no.
This time it worked like a charm. Thank you so much for your help.
 
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