I'm sure it would have actually worked, seeing as I can boot both Tiger and Leopard installers from USB, but the performance would be woefully slow, in fact, I might try it later lol
Yepp, this is what I should have started with, but my USB SATA to IDE connector didn't get enough power to work on the PowerBook, sadly. So I added an extra step and used a USB stick, worked well in the end lol