creating bootable partition on external HD

I'm looking to use my external HD both for backup and to be able to boot osx or windows with bootcamp. I've been told this can be done using disk utility but was not told the process. I'm wondering if anybody can help me out? Thank you

If you just want it bootable from OS X just restart with the DVD/CD and select it as the install location and proceed as normal. You can then use Preferences > Startup Disk to select which volume to boot tr in the event of a HD failure boot holding option. You can also attach it to another Mac and boot with it as well.

The Windows boot thing I'm not to sure on since iI have yet to play around on the Intel hardware.

is there any specific way I have to format it? If so, how do I do this?

To boot OS X, a Partition must be HFS or HFS+. This can be done with Disk Utility.

The drives will appear on the left of the app window. Select one and use the options on the right to create a single volume or multiple partitions with multiple formats.

If I want to boot from windows what do i need to do? I already formatter a partition on the external HD for windows (FAT32). Can I now just load windows onto it (not having to use bootcamp)? Thank you!

I don't think so. Boot camp does something to the boot loader to tell it there is a bootable windows partition (i think). Boot camp might be the only way. There may be an OF command that does the same thing but I don't know that to be true. Try using an XP CD and holding C at boot. I doubt it'd be that easy.