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Boot Camp: "Files cannot be moved"

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PockieLoli :3

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 31, 2009
54
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So, I was formerly using VMware Fusion but I haven't been happy with its performance; plus there's a game I want to try that Crossover Games can't run. So I figured I'd suck it up with having to reboot and try Boot Camp out.

I've already uninstalled VMware Fusion and deleted the actual Windows partition yet I'm still getting an error message.

Here's a screenshot with that message and information about my HD through Disk Utility.

http://i35.tinypic.com/nosifd.png
 
Very common problem and you have 2 choices. Either try one of the various Mac defragging programs like iDefrag which may or (more likely) may not work, or back up your HD, reinstall the OS and partition from bootcamp.
 
Thanks for the input! ^^

Well, looks like my best (and only) option would be the second. Do I back up my drive by just copying it over to a flashdrive?
As for reinstalling my OS, do I have to clear all my folders first or just pop the CD in?

Hehe, sorry for the questions, I'm not too computer savvy so I'll need these things to be explained a bit more.
 
You need a sufficiently large external drive to hold all the information on your laptop drive. That drive must be formatted to HFS+ (Mac journaled). Then you can use the restore function in disk utility to clone the laptop drive to the external drive.

Next you boot the Leopard or Snow Leopard install disk and partition your laptop disk, which will wipe all the information. Then install OS X from scratch. When you come to the point where you are asked if you want to load programs or data from another Mac you point to the external drive clone.

After this you will have a spanking new installation with all your previous data on board. Try to partition your drive with bootcamp again.

Before you do all this check how full your drive is. You should have at least 25% free space after you have installed Windows. With the tiny disk you are using this is not likely. You may want to replace your 120 GB disk with a 320 or 500 GB disk before doing all the installation work. This is a good time for such a move. iFixit.com has good tutorials on how to exchange hard disks in a MP or MBP.

Of course you could also put some of your data on the external disk to get more space. If that is preferrable you should make two partitions on the external disk. One for the data you are going to keep external and a second for the cloning.
 
Rodus said:
Very common problem and you have 2 choices. Either try one of the various Mac defragging programs like iDefrag which may or (more likely) may not work, or back up your HD, reinstall the OS and partition from bootcamp.
Click to expand...

Those are not the only options. I just had this problem and I did not have to reinstall or defrag.

Here's what I did:
1. Boot from the OS install disk or a bootable backup copy
2. Run Disk Utily and repair your hard drive
3. Reboot into your normal OS
4. Run Boot Camp and partition.

I had Boot Camp throw the same error near the end of the partition process after I did this. I looked at the hard drive using the demo of iDefrag and saw a couple of very very small fragments that could not be moved. I restarted and ran Boot Camp again and it finished without issue.

You may want to try this before reinstalling everything. This is much faster than defraging the entire hard drive.
 
Alright, well I'll try john0879's and jaw04005's suggestions first because I don't have an external hard drive or the money to buy iDefrag (my mom is very paranoid with online transactions. :[).

Thanks for the advice so a far. I'll post some results when I get some.
 
Sorry for double posting, but I need this thread to be bumped for responses to my results.

Anyways, I tried this out:
john0879 said:
Those are not the only options. I just had this problem and I did not have to reinstall or defrag.

Here's what I did:
1. Boot from the OS install disk or a bootable backup copy
2. Run Disk Utily and repair your hard drive
3. Reboot into your normal OS
4. Run Boot Camp and partition.

I had Boot Camp throw the same error near the end of the partition process after I did this. I looked at the hard drive using the demo of iDefrag and saw a couple of very very small fragments that could not be moved. I restarted and ran Boot Camp again and it finished without issue.

You may want to try this before reinstalling everything. This is much faster than defraging the entire hard drive.
Click to expand...
Disk Utility said that my HD appears to be ok and all that after I repaired it, yet Boot Camp is still giving me the same error message. :[
I even rebooted and retried Boot Camp like you did and I'm still getting the message about half way through the partition every time.

I did notice this, though: http://i37.tinypic.com/2wrht3p.png

Would changing my Volume Scheme from "current" to "1 partition" help me?
Oh, and what effects will that have on my HD? (ie. memory being erased, etc...)
 
PockieLoli :3 said:
I did notice this, though: http://i37.tinypic.com/2wrht3p.png

Would changing my Volume Scheme from "current" to "1 partition" help me?
Oh, and what effects will that have on my HD? (ie. memory being erased, etc...)
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that didn't work. Looks like I might have been lucky.

It looks to me like your current scheme is 1 partition. I don't know if changing will help. It will cause you to erase your HD though. Using iDefrag would probably be a better option. It just takes a long time to complete. You might want to let it run overnight.

I saw a suggestion in another thread (sorry, I don't have the link) that you could clone your HD using SuperDuper and then restore your HD from the backup. Supposedly this restores your HD in one continuous block leaving you a continuous block of blank space a the end of the HD that Boot Camp will like. Probably not any quicker than iDefrag, but you can do it for free if you have an external HD.

Good luck. Let us know if you get it to work. This seems like a YMMV type of issue.
 
I went through this when I first wanted to put bootcamp on. I did the defrag and a few other things, nothing worked. I ended up doing as they said, backing everything up to an external disk and then starting from scratch. I didn't have much installed so I just backed up my documents. :(

But once it was done it was fine. And it works great.
 
CylonGlitch said:
I went through this when I first wanted to put bootcamp on. I did the defrag and a few other things, nothing worked. I ended up doing as they said, backing everything up to an external disk and then starting from scratch. I didn't have much installed so I just backed up my documents. :(

But once it was done it was fine. And it works great.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I might just end up doing this.

Though I don't have an external hardrive but I also don't have many things I'd like to keep; just a folder of .psd files of drawings.
So I'll probably just move those files the way I did when I first got my MacBook. I used AIM's file transfer to move all my music from my desktop to my MacBook under two different usernames! :D

I'm starting to feel a little bit guilty though because I love Crossover Games. The staff is very supportive. Maybe I'll just wait until my one year of service expires...

Well, with that said, may I get some insight on Boot Camp compared to Crossover?
Will the graphics in games look just as good as an actual Windows system with a good graphics card? Or will that still be dependent on my MacBook's weak graphics card?
Also, will all applications run just as they would on an actual Windows system? I ask this because there was a program I used to use back on my desktop called Paint Tool SAI. It's a drawing program that works with tablets and it requires a certain driver in Windows to work at its full potential.

Oh, and another slightly related question...
If I end up reinstalling my OS, can I use the same product key for my copy of Adobe Photoshop?
 
Have you already tried all the suggestions I've been getting in this thread?
Reinstalling your entire OS like everyone's been saying seems to be the sure fire way. :]
 
Microsoft database

I also got this error.

I tried moving all files to a USB drive one by one. Nothing worked until I removed the microsoft office 2008 database. After that partitioning went fine.

Before you can transfer the database file and delete it from your boot drive you need to kill the daemon in Activity Monitor.

Probably best to restore the database before installing XP.

Hope that helps.
 
I got this error as well and have been looking around the forums to find possible solutions. I had not thought to worry or move old Office files, but I will take a look at that and add it to my list of possibilities when I get home from work.

Thanks, Scott

Update: I was able to successfully partition my drive after booting from a CD and compacting my HD. :)
 
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