How do I know external hard drive is working?

Sorry for the simplistic nature of the questions but here goes:
Purchased a Toshiba external hard drive - plugged it in and Time Machine asked a few questions and soon it asked if I wanted to back up my internal hard drive.
After 40 plus minutes the task was completed - it stopped doing whatever it was doing - that much I'm certain.
How do I know the Toshiba is continuing to back up material? The light on the Toshiba is 'on' at times and 'off' on other times - so it's backing material up when the light is on??? Automatically, on its own?
Time Machine and/or the Toshiba do not appear to have any schedule for routine back-up (such as one would find on an anti-virus application), is there a way to schedule a backup?
Under Time Machine preferences it shows the Toshiba as the external disk. Plus I just noticed that it states the next back up will be 8:34 am today - 22 minutes from right now. What an odd time and it isn't a time I selected, at least I don't think so!
How do I access the Toshiba to see what, if anything, it has backed up?
Finally, assuming the external has backed up all the important data and should my (brand new - but that's another story) hard drive crash, how do I get the computer to ignore the damaged internal hard drive and start using the Toshiba?
As you can tell these question would be easily answered by most anyone with a modicum of computer knowledge but for me, thank goodness for Apple Discussion!
Thanks in advance.
Bob

See > Setting up Time Machine backups using an external drive
From Here > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
More Info > Time Machine Tutorial
Bob13018 wrote:
... how do I get the computer to ignore the damaged internal hard drive and start using the Toshiba
This is Not how TM works... It is not a Bootable Clone... Read Here...
Time Machine vs. Clones and Archives

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