Can OS X boot from an external hard drive's partition?

I purchased a 500GB external hard drive in hopes of: 1. creating a bootable backup copy of a freshly installed version of Snow Leopard, and 2. a backup of files which I don't want on my Macbook (ie. school files from 8 years ago).
If I divide the external hard drive into 2 partitions, can OS X still boot from a partition? I heard from somewhere that OS X can only boot a volume, but not a partition...
As usual, thank you for any help you can provide!

miceblue425 wrote:
I purchased a 500GB external hard drive in hopes of: 1. creating a bootable backup copy of a freshly installed version of Snow Leopard, and 2. a backup of files which I don't want on my Macbook (ie. school files from 8 years ago).
Yes.
If I divide the external hard drive into 2 partitions, can OS X still boot from a partition? I heard from somewhere that OS X can only boot a volume, but not a partition...
Two names for the same thing: partition = volume.
As usual, thank you for any help you can provide!
Most external HDs are bootable. But some Western Digitals won't boot a Mac. Their list of which ones should and +should not+ boot: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1787. But note the disclaimer that they don't support it +*at all.+*
For setup instructions, see #1 in Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks.

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