Bootcamp Partition Error: "Files cannot be moved"

watchmainspring · Apr 5, 2006

When partitioning so that I can install XP, bootcamp claims that specific files cannot be moved, making it so that I am unable to install XP.

It then orders me to ~gasp~ back my files, and reinstall OSX.

Anyone else have this error message?
I wanted a 14GB partition, and that would leave about 16 additional gigs free on the OSX partition

I am NOT reinstalling X! Anyone got any ideas?

eva01 · Apr 5, 2006

If it is telling you to backup and reinstall the OS then do so. If you refuse to do it then seems like you wont be installing XP on your machine.

CanadaRAM · Apr 5, 2006

A guess only -- do you have a protected File Vault on this machine?
Perhaps some other software that is locked in position.. suspects might be serial number or activation code for an application...

watchmainspring · Apr 5, 2006

CanadaRAM said:
A guess only -- do you have a protected File Vault on this machine?
Perhaps some other software that is locked in position.. suspects might be serial number or activation code for an application...

good question. Doom 3 might do it. Maybe Office. Maybe Photoshop.

Anyone else have this problem, with any of these programs?

bigpumbaa · Apr 5, 2006

I'm getting the exact same error... I also have Office 2004 installed... maybe that is it?

watchmainspring · Apr 5, 2006

bigpumbaa said:
I'm getting the exact same error... I also have Office 2004 installed... maybe that is it?

you try first!

watchmainspring · Apr 5, 2006

Winstonp said:
you try first!

okay, okay, I just deleted office German and Office English....

re-attempting

standy by

bngbrgr · Apr 5, 2006

I'm getting this error, too!

Right now, I'm zero-ing all the free space on my HD.

I'll tell you if that does anything.

bigpumbaa · Apr 5, 2006

Winstonp said:
you try first!

Lol... I'm a recent fulltime switcher and JUST YESTERDAY I shipped off my Windows machine (sold it on eBay...) I've been doing fine with Mac OS X exclusively for about 2-3 weeks... installing Windows was just going to be a fun thing to try... handy to have. Now that it's saying I'll have to reformat, I'm fine waiting. Getting all my information from my Windows machine to my Mac was hard enough... I'm not about to go through putting everything back on this thing again with a reformat. Until I get an external HD (which was in the cards anyways... I'm running the baseline Mac Mini Core Solo... 60 gigs) I'm Mac exclusive I suppose.

So... you try first

watchmainspring · Apr 5, 2006

the problem is not office. I repeat NOT office.

same error.

bigpumbaa · Apr 5, 2006

Winstonp said:
the problem is not office. I repeat NOT office.

same error.

Arg... after it gave me that error I tried to do it again and the 2nd time it told me that the disk couldn't be verified and that I had to repair it. After I repaired it, I got the same error again. Looks like no bootcamp for my lil' mini. Hopefully bootcamp transforms into a virtualization program and I won't have to reboot. Either that, or I'm in the market for an external FireWire HD.

Serious · Apr 5, 2006

I got the same error.

At first, I thought it to be rights-related, so I tried the same procedure logged in as an administrator. Didn't work either.

I wanted to create a 20GB windows partition. Then I thought to myself "Well, if I create a smaller partition, he probably won't have to move so much stuff he can't move anyway."

So I tried to create a 15GB partition and - voila - it worked !

By now, it annoys me quite a bit that I jumped from 20GB to 15GB. 19GB could have done the trick already. So, to anyone trying this out, I recommend doing small 1GB steps until it works...

Hope that this helps you guys

lhawkins · Apr 5, 2006

Will the installer (Boot Camp) allow you to install to an entire drive, instead of a partition? I got a MiniStack with a 500GB drive for the Mac and right now the original internal drive is just sitting empty... I think I might try XP on that if its possible.

bigpumbaa said:
Arg... after it gave me that error I tried to do it again and the 2nd time it told me that the disk couldn't be verified and that I had to repair it. After I repaired it, I got the same error again. Looks like no bootcamp for my lil' mini. Hopefully bootcamp transforms into a virtualization program and I won't have to reboot. Either that, or I'm in the market for an external FireWire HD.

CanadaRAM · Apr 5, 2006

Apple has some rules about the size of the partition possible, it must be no larger than your current free hard disk space less 5 Gb

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303572#faq0

How is the Windows XP partition created?

Boot Camp Assistant lets you easily create a partition for Windows XP to use without erasing your Mac OS X information. Boot Camp Assistant only works with an Intel-based Mac that has one hard disk partition. Boot Camp Assistant creates a second partition on your existing startup disk for the Windows XP operating system. You can choose the size of the Windows partition when running Boot Camp Assistant Beta, but it must be at least 5 GB and leave at least 5GB of free space on the disk for the Mac OS X partition.

For example, if you have an 80 GB hard drive with 50 GB of space in use (30 GB free), your Windows XP partition can be between 5 GB and 25 GB (30 minus 5) in size.

Note: Boot Camp Assistant does not erase your existing partition or existing Mac OS X installation when it creates a new partition for Windows XP.

Important: Do not use Disk Utility or third-party disk utilities to partition the drive before using Boot Camp Assistant--these will erase the disk.

bigpumbaa · Apr 5, 2006

Serious said:
I got the same error.

At first, I thought it to be rights-related, so I tried the same procedure logged in as an administrator. Didn't work either.

I wanted to create a 20GB windows partition. Then I thought to myself "Well, if I create a smaller partition, he probably won't have to move so much stuff he can't move anyway."

So I tried to create a 15GB partition and - voila - it worked !

By now, it annoys me quite a bit that I jumped from 20GB to 15GB. 19GB could have done the trick already. So, to anyone trying this out, I recommend doing small 1GB steps until it works...

Hope that this helps you guys

I got the error when I was using the minimum 5GB for Windows XP... so that doesn't help me. Until I get a ministack or something similar... no XP for me.

CanadaRAM · Apr 5, 2006

lhawkins said:
Will the installer (Boot Camp) allow you to install to an entire drive, instead of a partition? I got a MiniStack with a 500GB drive for the Mac and right now the original internal drive is just sitting empty... I think I might try XP on that if its possible.

From the Setup Guide PDF:
"Windows XP requires its own partition on your computers internal startup disk."

There is no mention of whether it works on an external disk at all.

My guess is that it must be installed on your OSX boot volume, and that it *may* be restricted to a drive on the internal SATA buss.

levydesign · Apr 5, 2006

Error

It seems from my experience with Boot Camp, that it does not support over a 10G partition at this time. 10G and under does not give this error, so if you want to use windows on a bigger partition, you will have to partition it before hand. Simply having boot camp installed seems to give you access to booting from a Windows disk in startup disk. I will keep playing with it and see what I can come up with. I did get 15 and 17 to work, have not tried 19 yet.

deathbyzen · Apr 5, 2006

Hey guys... im having this same problem. I have a Mac Mini core duo. I tried to do the minimum 5 gig partition and at first I got the "Cannot verify disk" error. So I used the disk utility and repaired everything. Then I got the "cannot move files" error. Deleting free space didnt do anything. Im gonna try changing the size of the partition to something bigger than 5. I will let you know how it goes.

bigpumbaa · Apr 5, 2006

I've tried to do it a couple of times. I get the error, telling me I'll have to wipe the HD, which makes my Startup Disk have errors. I fix the errors with Disk Utility, try to run BootCamp again, and get the same error. I really have no idea whats causing it. I'm going to try simply installing Windows XP on an external drive, because I don't feel like wiping my Mac's HD just to install windows one it... not when I've just gotten comfortable with the system.

slb · Apr 6, 2006

I got this error as well. I kept removing files and backing them up to an external drive to free more space, but the message kept appearing. Finally, I removed a few more meaningless little apps, then noticed my external Firewire DVD drive was turned on and connected to the iMac. Nothing was mounted, but I turned the drive off anyway and made sure none of my other external drives were mounted or turned on. Then when I ran Boot Camp, it worked. I don't know if that's what fixed my problem, but things worked for me after that.

cal6n · Apr 6, 2006

levydesign said:
It seems from my experience with Boot Camp, that it does not support over a 10G partition at this time. 10G and under does not give this error, so if you want to use windows on a bigger partition, you will have to partition it before hand. Simply having boot camp installed seems to give you access to booting from a Windows disk in startup disk. I will keep playing with it and see what I can come up with. I did get 15 and 17 to work, have not tried 19 yet.

Uummm.. No!

I partitioned direct to 20 GB using Boot Camp. I previously had XoM running and tried to save my install but no dice. The only thing was to erase my drive, reinstall OS X, run the updates, then firmware and Boot Camp. Once XP was stable (well, as stable as it's ever going to be) I rebuilt my OS X side.

deathbyzen · Apr 6, 2006

Just a follow up... I couldnt get it to work no matter what i tried and I ended up messing up the permissions on some system critical files. So, I bit the bullet and backed up my stuff and reinstalled X. Boot Camp didnt give me any crap and now I can dual boot! Lots a trouble, but definately worth it.

ChazzHack · May 23, 2006

Changing the partition down to the default was the trick that finally worked for me too.

Koree · May 27, 2006

I'm trying to go up in my partition's size. I restored it to a single volume using bootcamp. Now im getting that error. What do i do. >< please help.

msteele999 · Jun 25, 2006

I located the 'files that cannot be moved'

In my case, the files for Parallels VM were marked unmovable.

I backed up my hard disk and deleted these files and viola!

I now have Windows XP running via boot camp

Bootcamp Partition Error: "Files cannot be moved"

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