Help--Bootable Backup?

Just have a question about bootable backups as I've been hearing a lot about them lately. First off, what exactly is a bootable backup? I'm not 100% clear on what it is. Secondly, I have an external USB 2.0 HD. Is it possible to make a bootable backup with a USB drive or does it have to be firewire? If I can make a bootable backup with my USB 2 HD, how do I go about doing it? Do I have to create a partition? How do I do that? Thanks for helping out a (semi)clueless mac fan. By the way, loving the upgrade to Leopard. Everything is running great for me. Thanks for any help!!

Superjudge2,
Ian has already answered your question, and thoroughly. However, bootable backups are somewhat less of a "big deal" now that you are running Leopard.
With Leopard and Time Machine, you can restore everything from your Time Machine backup at any time by booting to the Leopard install disk. Instead of installing a fresh copy of Leopard, the installer will use any of the Time Machine "snapshots" of your system.
Bootable backups still have their uses, though. For example, if your hard drive fails entirely, and simply will not work, you could still boot your Mac to that external containing a bootable OS. This would allow you to continue to use your computer until you could procure and install a working hard drive.
Scott

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