Update: If you ever change your logon password, be sure to update the password in the scheduled task, otherwise it will not run.

On my personal laptop I have an 80 Gig 7200 rpm drive with two partitions. One is ~20 gigs which has Windows XP installed and the second is ~60 Gigs with all of my data such as My Documents, My Music as well as things like my Outlook psts that normally get hidden away in the user profile. I have found this is a great way to work things as it makes backing up my data and my operating system a cinch. I do frequent backups of all my data using Acronis and normally only backup my system before doing Windows updates or installing programs. The best part is when I get a new laptop or when I finally decide to install Vista, moving the data should be a breeze. The other night though, I was trying to schedule a defragment of the drives and this led to the question - how do I schedule say my Z:\ drive??? A quick search found - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/tips/gehrke1.mspx This did the trick, but I think pictures make it a lot easier:

1. Click start then Run or Windows +R and then type "tasks" and click OK or hit enter on the keyboard.
   

   

2. Double click "Add Scheduled Task" in the window that opens.
   

   

3. Click next in the wizard that opens.
   

   

4. Click browse.
   

   

5. Paste the following text into the File name text box -   %systemroot%\system32\defrag.exe    and click open.
   

   

6. Name the task and select the frequency you would like. I recommend weekly.
   

   

7. Choose the time and day of the week you would like the task to take place. I recommend the middle of the night and then click next.

   

8. Enter and confirm the password that you normally use to login to your computer (please tell me you use a password) and then click next.
   

   

9. Check the box on the wizard to open the advanced properties when finished. You need to do one last thing.
   

   

10. Enter the drive letter you wish to defragment as shown in the image below and then click OK.

    

Note that you can always run a task at any time you want by right clicking on it and choosing run. I would suggest opening scheduled tasks now and again to make sure that the tasks you have scheduled are actually running and completing. You can tell the last time a task was run by looking at the last run column.

Interested in partitioning drives and how best to install XP - check out this great article: http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/installxp/installXP1.htm