odd issue with SD

[camner]

Well, it seems that a different firewire cable helps..at least partially. The backup completed (I did an erase and backup to make sure things didn't get mucked up).

BUT, the computer still won't boot from the backup. Two interesting symptoms:

1. If I select the external drive in Startup Disk and try to reboot, I get a blank gray screen for a while, then a blinking question mark alternating with a blinking "old" (Mac OS 9) style happy face

2. If I reboot the machine with the option key held down, the external drive does not appear in the list.

Is it possible that a drive attached to a firewire PCI card might not be recognized until sometime later in the boot sequence...with this perhaps differing from the situation with built in Firewire?