[G4] booting options with failed hard drive?

[YOUR FRIEND, CHRIS]

hi-
i have a gigabit ethernet with an owc mercury fw external hd. i am 
using a non apple keyboard. i made a clone which it will boot from if 
selected in systems preferences - but will NOT boot by holding down 
option key at startup, because startup manager isn't supported by the 
non apple keyboard {i tested with an apple keyboard and it went right 
to startup manager}.

i don't want to use an apple keyboard. when the internal drive does 
fail, is there any other way to boot from the external drive? i'm 
currently on os 10.2.8 with 9.2 also on clone.

also; i would like to back up my installation discs in case they get 
lost or damaged. can i just drag their images onto the external drive 
to have a full - and - bootable copy of the os?
if so, do it put it on the clone partition of the fw drive?

thank you for all your replies.