[szavo]

I'll try it again tomorrow when I have more time. For now, here's the evidence I have that I actually booted from the external USB drive:

1) When holding down option at start-up, then external USB drive came up as a boot drive option

2) When I selected it, the computer started up, and the desktop I was looking at had the files and folders that looked like the state of my desktop when I did the backup, not the more recent desktop I had seen just before restarting the computer.

3) I saved a folder to the desktop named "backup desktop test," then re-booted from the internal HD. The newly created folder was not present.

Admittedly, this is the evidence of a novice. Like I said, I will use the checks you suggest tomorrow. Can you explain how to "check the 'root' of each drive in the Finder?" Is there something to look for other than "special" icons in the boot drive? You said "you might want to try ejecting it, too." Is the boot drive "unejectable?"

Finally, when you say that "The drive mounted at / is the boot drive," do you mean that when I go into Apple System Profiler and look at the USB drive, if I have actually booted from it it should simply read:

Mount Point: /

Just want to make sure so that when I pull the rabbit out of the hat again, I know whether it's actually a rabbit.

Thanks,
Steve