Booting CD External Drive

[utilizer]

How do I boot a CD from an external drive? I have one of the dreaded Pismo DVD bay drives that are rendered unusable in OS X (thanks alot Apple!). I can't play DVDs or anything like that. I've even tried getting that 24x combo drive for it but the screws on the dang device are "fused"; I can't get them for the life of me, so I put that upgrade back on eBay. I was wondering if you guys (or gals) know anything about booting a system disk from an external CDRW drive. I have the LaCie d2 Firewire 52x. I'm just wondering, before I try it and waste time, is it possible?
As always, thanks in advance!

[PixelFactory]

Hold down the option key when starting up. It should give you the Startup Manager. It should recognize the external drive.

[utilizer]

Awesome, thanks a mill! This is for an OS X system, right? Never heard of Startup Manager, not ever since OS 9, which I can't run.