Reformatting an External Drive to make it Bootable in OSX

I want to buy a 1TB Desk External Hard Drive to store all of my images and video etc. I could buy a LaCie formatted for the mac but they are 1/3 more in price so I 'd prefer to buy any drive and reformat it.
So I phoned the store an they said all drives they sell are PC and they need to be "Reformated" for the mac to make them bootable.
He said I can buy "Any" External HD and reformat it so it can be "Bootable" from the Mac.
So my Questions are:
1) Is this true? Can buy any 1 TB External Drive and reformat it so it can be "Bootable" by the mac OS?
2) How would I reformat the drive for OSX? Is this something Super Duper can do?
I appreciate any help you may be able to give me.
pg

1. Yes.
2. See the following:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
You cannot do this with SuperDuper! which is just a backup utility. Of course after prepping the drive you need to put a bootable copy of OS X on it either by installing it from an OS X installer DVD or cloning an existing system. See the following:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box to Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive.
Source means the internal startup drive.

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