Status Update:
Last month I bought another OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro - 1TB. The drive arrived, hooked it up - and same result.
I used CCC to clone the entire System, then If I selected it in System Preferences as the boot drive - the Computer couldn't seem to find the external drive - and it would default to using the internal drive.
Getting nowhere, I decided to update the OS on my G5 from X 10.4.11 to X10.5.6 - even if I didn't have a bootable backup. I had the OS-X 10.5 install disc. The installation went about 1/4 way - and the system crashed. I couldn't get the CD/DVD drive to eject the Install Disc.. So did a cold boot - holding down the "Option" key - - - The system searched for a minute, then displayed icons for the internal hard drive, the CD/DVD drive and The External Hard Drive… I selected the External Drive.. and the system booted from that!
So for some unknown reason - my system wouldn't boot from the external drive when selected from the Sys. Preferences "Startup Disc" panel - - - but it would boot from the external drive when the "Option Key" was held down - and it was selected during the Start Up Process.
Having my old G5 PPC Pro up and running again at 10.4.11 - I updated the backup on the external drive - then dropped by the local Best Buy and bought a new Mac Mini i7. Had to give up waiting for Apple to release a new Mac Mini. So I've spent what time I've had available - moving my data and software to the new Mini.
Although not a part of this original discussion - I will mention that I have found the following:
1. MS-Office 2008 loaded and seems to run fine on OS-X 10.8.5
2. Had to update Photoshop Elements..from v 4. to v12
- - had to use Phoenix Slides Software to replace the basic functions of "Bridge" in Elements v4
3. Had to update Fetch for FTP transfers
4. Used EMailChemy - to pull all my Eudora Mail files - into AppleMail. AMAZING!!
98,000 EMail messages, 2445 attachments, in at least 45 Mail boxes - many with subfolders.
5. Still haven't been able to get my Personal Address Book data/information transferred to the new "Contacts" address book on OS-X 10.8.5. This is a real worry…
Thanks for all the help..
Carl