Capabilities of an External Hard drive

[JACofNoIdeas]

I was thinking of buying an external hard drive so I would have both a backup of my data, store more stuff, and a way to transfer things to other computers.

I was wondering what exactly I would be able to do with the hard drive. Could I plug it into my current computer, copy the entirely of my internal hard drive onto the external, and then plug that into some other computer and run everything like normal on that new computer?
Can things be saved onto the external hard drive and then just run off of it like normal, or do I need to transfer them onto an internal hard drive before I use them?

Thank you

 

[KSoD]

No you wouldnt just be able to copy the drive and run it from another PC like it was your current PC. There is something called a hardware profile that is created when you install Windows. This hardware profile is what is used to obtain the drivers needed to operate the system. If the hardware profile doesnt match, Windows wont work properly. So using your current setup on another PC isnt possible.

You can install programs to it from sites like Portable Apps.com or something like that to run right off the external. You can save your pictures, documents and all of that on there for use on another PC.

 

[JACofNoIdeas]

Ah, okay. Thank you!