Boot Camp Partition Help

Hello,

I've been trying to partition my MacBook Pro for a 32GB Windows to be put on. Every time I try to partition a message comes up saying "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. Back up the disk and use DISK UTILITY to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again." If anyone can help please do!

Very common error. What it means is this:

There is not enough contiguous space on your hard drive in order for the Boot Camp assistant to create a partition. In other words, your hard drive is fragmented.

Two ways to resolve the error.

1. Erase the drive, reinstall, and restore from Time Machine backup.

2. Purchase iDefrag for $29.95.

I recommend you go with (1) above as iDefrag is somewhat complex to use and may have to be run several times before it works to allow the BC assistant to create the partition.

I have iDefrag and am giving you this advice from my personal experience with using it.

Simple problem to fix

I installed Win7 HP via bootcamp 4 days ago and experienced the EXACT same problem. My first attempt to partition my HD resulted in the same ".....some files cannot be moved" error. What I did was boot by my included SL installation disk, go into disk utility, erase the ENTIRE Hard drive and then restored via my external Time Machine backup HD. I know that sounds dramatic but the entire process was quite painless and took far less time than I imagined. The full restore @115 Gb took about 35 minutes. After that partitioning took less than a minute and 2 or3 hours later I was installing my entire Windows game collection on my MBP.

erasing

chscag said:

Very common error. What it means is this:

There is not enough contiguous space on your hard drive in order for the Boot Camp assistant to create a partition. In other words, your hard drive is fragmented.

Two ways to resolve the error.

1. Erase the drive, reinstall, and restore from Time Machine backup.

2. Purchase iDefrag for $29.95.

I recommend you go with (1) above as iDefrag is somewhat complex to use and may have to be run several times before it works to allow the BC assistant to create the partition.

I have iDefrag and am giving you this advice from my personal experience with using it.

Click to expand...

Just be sure you erase after booting from your OSX install disk.

Just be sure you erase after booting from your OSX install disk.

Click to expand...

That should be understood by the OP. You can't erase a disk while you're booted from it.

Touche!

I did not know that. So just call me a fool then I suppose

chscag said:

Very common error. What it means is this:

There is not enough contiguous space on your hard drive in order for the Boot Camp assistant to create a partition. In other words, your hard drive is fragmented.

Two ways to resolve the error.

1. Erase the drive, reinstall, and restore from Time Machine backup.

2. Purchase iDefrag for $29.95.

I recommend you go with (1) above as iDefrag is somewhat complex to use and may have to be run several times before it works to allow the BC assistant to create the partition.

I have iDefrag and am giving you this advice from my personal experience with using it.

Click to expand...

When you erase the drive are all your files erased?

When you erase the drive are all your files erased?

Click to expand...

Yes. That's why I also added "restore from Time Machine backup".

chscag said:

Yes. That's why I also added "restore from Time Machine backup".

Click to expand...

Ah i don't own a time machine so i will need to find another way to get my files onto a spare hard drive or something.

also when you said ''There is not enough contiguous space '' i have over 100gb of free space should i still be getting the error message?

Notice the word: "contiguous". You may have plenty of free space but it is not "contiguous". In other words, the free space may be scattered throughout the drive but not enough of it is in one place to allow the creation of a partition for Windows.