Yes, the disks always show up in the Startup Disk preference pane.
Last night I Erased (one pass with 0's) the Rugged Lacie and partitioned to APM then let SD run through the night and back up the computer. This morning, everything was complete so I selected it as the Startup Disk and Restarted ... nothing. It just went to the white screen with the Apple and stops, there is no revolving wheel showing that the computer is thinking, etc.
I just don't know what to do with these new disks.
The only difference in the new disks and the original backup is they are partitioned down to a smaller size to match the internal HDD. Is there some reason that since there is other stuff on the external HDD (albeit in other partitions) that I can't boot from those drives?