Boot Camp cannot partition / Bootdisk failing

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Hi!

So here I am, new iMac (just 2 months old) and I'm loving every bit of it.. until today. I tried to install Windows XP via Boot Camp because my architecture study requires me to. And it has given me nothing but pain and misery..

Boot Camp Assistant tells me it cannot partition the drive (300GB/120GB Free) because "some files cannot be moved". A common error, google has let me know, as hundreds of people encounter this error and have also found a fix; iDefrag. Apparently, OS X does not fragment her drives decently and since Boot Camp Assistant looks for a minimum of 5GB consecutive free space, sometimes when you have big files on your disk, they end up in the back sector of your drive and that makes Boot Camp Assistant annoyed.

So I decided to install iDefrag and defragment my drive. To defragment the drive that OS X is installed on, I had to create a bootable disk using Coriolis CD Maker that contained the iDefrag application. That way I could defragment the OS X drive thoroughly. So I follow the guide and burn the application to a DVD. It's working perfectly, so I decide to restart and boot from the CD.

Though here's the thing: Whenever I boot with the DVD inserted and hold C to boot from the DVD, the Apple logo appears but then the screen goes black and the iMac reboots. If I do not press C, it starts up normally but trying to boot from the DVD results in a crash/reboot.

I've tested the DVD; it is perfectly fine. Does anyone have an idea why this happens, and perhaps have another solution to my Boot Camp issue?

Thanks in advance!

Mike
 

chscag

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How in the world did you fill that 300 Gb drive up so fast? :Smirk:

Anyway, the procedure you followed is the correct one. iDefrag is the recommended way to consolidate a fragmented drive. I can't explain why the DVD you created is not working except to say - try making another one using a different brand of media. Make sure the DVD works on another machine - that is - make sure it's bootable.

If all else fails, backup your data and reinstall Leopard. Then run the Boot Camp assistant again.

BTW, if you've only got 120 Gb to work with you'll be low on available space after you create the Boot Camp partition. Might be time to offload a whole bunch of whatever you have on the drive to an external firewire or USB HDD.

Regards.
 
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Thanks for your reply!

I have 2 external disks, one has a capacity of 1TB (20% filled) and one has 160GB of space (80% filled). Disk space is not an issue for me, though reinstalling Leopard and with it all my configurations/settings is.

Do you have a method for making sure a disk is bootable or not? How do I test it?

Mike
 

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