Upgrade / Back Up Question

[blackbones]

I know this has been addressed in a few previous threads but i just want to be clear before I go jumping into anything.

I run a small design business, so i picked up OSX Panther Family pack (5 copies) to put on 4 of our machines. Did an archive install on this machine (800mhz imac g4), everything is working amazingly and I plan to install on the other computers tomorrow.

The 5th machine of ours is a bit of a problem. Its a G4 Quicksilver running Jaguar. Something at somepoint in the last 2 weeks when VERY wrong, no programs will launch except Explorer which will immediatly crash when a new site address is entered. About the only thing we can do with the machine is navigate around the hard-drive. Since I knew that Panther was coming out i decided that ide order an internal hard-drive, transfer all the important files over to this drive and then do a clean install of Panther on the original harddrive.

This should clear up any problems with the OS correct. And am i correct in assuming backing up to an internal drive is an ok way to go? Most people have been talking about backing up to various fire-wire drives.

Thank you, im a bit of a novice when it comes to the tech end of macs, but im learning alot from these forums.