[hcorf]

i recently purchased an ibook with one of those lacie usb2.0 7200rpm external hard drives.
This beingmy first mac i have only ever used panther, but is there any way i can install os9 on an ibookg4?
if so could it be installed just on my external hdd so i can mess about with it without risking the internal drive?
also, on a not so related note, could i install panther on the external drive and somehow boot from it to increase performance over the slower internal drive of the ibook? then i could surely have a complete backup of the system which i could copy back onto the internal hard drive as and when neccassary (having booted osx off the external drive)

any help regarding these issues would be gratefully recieved.

[Lateralus]

No, unfortunately no OS 9 for you. The last portables that booted OS 9 were the iBooks G3s. It is not something you can get around, the hardware in your machine will simply not get along with OS 9.

But you can install Panther onto an external drive and boot from it without a problem, at least if I remember correctly.

[Big Mac]

Even if your iBook were capable of booting OS 9, you wouldn't be able to run it off a USB 2 drive. I don't believe OS 9 supported booting from USB drives; it certainly wouldn't support USB 2 speed. Now it's important to remember that you can still run the Classic environment on your iBook.