Backup to external drive already used by Windows

Total Mac newbie who wants to back up a MacBook Pro.
I'd like to use one of the external drives I already own. The trouble is, they've been used for Windows storage already and so have that file system on them. They also have files and/or system backups I'd like to preserve.
Other posts here seem to say I can't even back up files from the Mac (let alone system images) unless I format the drives for OS X and use some kind of middleware on my PCs. I'd like to avoid that -- I still have 6 PCs running Windows and just the one MBP, so far.
Can someone help me understand what's really possible and/or recommended?
Thanks, in advance.

Drives used for Time Machine require GUID partition scheme.
These must have either the GUID or Apple Partition Map Partition Map Scheme, and either theMac OS Extended (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, journaled) Format.   On Lion, you can encrypt them.  See question #5  for details and formatting instructions.
--from: Time Machine - FAQ: 2.  What can Time Machine back up, and where can it put it’s backups?
Windows requires that GUID partition scheme not be obviously present.
You can store other files on a Time Machine drive, but Windows will not write to GUID drives.
New drives are cheap. Or combine some of your Windows stuff to free up a drive.

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