Can Time Machine back up to specific folder within external hard disk?

I have never used Time Machine, always using the Lacie backup software to back up to a folder I've named macintosh HD on my Lacie external disk. I have other folders containing data not on my macbook. The disk is not partitioned.
I decided to try Time Machine, but it only seems to give me a choice to back up to the whole Lacie external disk. The folders within it are all greyed out. I'm worried if I did use it, it would erase over my existing folders?
Is there any way to use Time Machine to backup to a specific folder within an external hard disk with already existing files on it?
Thanks

no, you can not designate a folder for TM backups. But TM will not erase anything already on your drive provided the drive is correctly formatted. It has to be formatted mac os extended journaled with GUID partition scheme for intel macs and APM for PPC macs.
If the drive is formatted correctly TM will simply make a folder at the top level of the drive. However, IMO it's an incredibly bad idea to keep other data on the same partition with TM. i strongly recommend you make a separate partition just for TM. There are just too many situations when you need to erase your TM drive and start backups over. having other data on that drive makes this very inconvenient.

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