new laptop hard drive - how to
 

I've searched the forums, but I'm not finding clear (enough for newbie-me) answers to the following questions. I would really appreciate your help. I am trying to understand every aspect of what I have to do to make sure that if I replace the hard drive in my MacBook laptop with a new (larger, more RPM) drive, I will be able to make a seamless transition. It's become clear that Time Machine isn't reliable enough, so I'm here with you guys and hoping this will work out.
1) I have a Maxtor USB external drive. Yes, USB. It's what I already have, I would really prefer not to buy a new drive. I am in the process of making a full backup to that drive. How do I confirm that I will be able to boot from it? (or the firewire drive you may insist I need to get)
2) When I do have this new, completely blank drive installed into my computer, how do I boot from the external drive so I can restore? Will I need to install the operating system first?
Thanks in advance for your help.

You need to make sure the USB drive is properly partitioned (as GUID) before you back up to it. Then, make your "Backup - all files" and try starting up from it.

And when you install the new drive, you'll Option+power on to start up from the backup, then partition the new drive, use the same name as the original, and restore as explained in the User's Guide. No OS install is needed.