Bootcamp Partition Error: "Files cannot be moved"

[jpoprock]

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

Where were they located, cuz I bet that is my problem too. I wonder if they are a process I can just kill off rather than deleting them? They should start back up when needed, and it may allow me to do the partition?

I'm running Parallels 7 with Win 7, but I'm thinking since I spend most of day in Windows for work related things that don't jive with OS X (.net and .aspx servers), I figured my windows experience would be FASTER if I ran Bootcamp. Problem is, I don't want to have to back up and wipe my current system drive (mainly because for as experienced as I am, I have no clue how to do reinstall things from say Time Machine since I've never used it. I usually just wipe and start over, reinstalling all my app's, and moving my home folder contents over, which is a time consuming PITA.

I have a 129 gigs left on my system drive, but Boot Camp won't partition a paltry 20gigs for XP Pro (figured I'd go back to XP Pro since Windows 7 may be too power hungry for this iMac?). I don't see the point of running Windows on 10gigs of space. That just isn't enough!

I wonder if I can install Windows XP or Windows 7 to an External Firewire drive if I partition a section for that? I have a partition for Snow Leo that I can boot too in an emergency, but I've never tried windows. Windows XP wants to use NFTS+, and Disc Util doesn't give that option. I'm pretty sure that MSDOS isn't the correct choice.

I don't think sharing resources on my iMac is ideal. Especially the power hungry Windows 7. My Mac only has 4gigs of memory and a small vid card. So I don't know what to do? I thought of just buying a cheap Windows Laptop and being done with running Windows on this Mac. It's fine for what I need it to do on the Mac side of things.

Thanks!

Jason

 

[scottdf]

Must be the 1%.... and not in a good way.

Hey Fellas,

you drive me really crazy with all your shittalk. I nearly spend 30 Precious dollars on a worthless crap software called iDefrag or something.
Well you bitches, here is a 100% working way to do it without spending 1 ****ing $:
(write following steps on paper)

1. Insert the MAC installation CD into your Mac.
2. Reboot and Hold the "C" key down.
3. Choose language.
4. Select "Utility" (or something) in the navbar on the top of the screen.
5. Select Disk Utility.
6. Select your Disk.
7. Press "Repair Disk" and wait until it finishes.
8. Press "Repair Disk Permissions" and wait until it finishes.
9. Reboot.
10. Open your Boot Camp Assistant (I kno you kno how to find it!)

-> Now it'll work at 99% sure.

I tried this on 100 Macs with the same problem and 99 times it worked. No Joke.
DO NOT BUY iDefrag or some other ******* paying tools unless you have ******** of money and want to support some poor dudes. But in that case you would better send your money to me 'coz I really solved the issue.
iDefrag however could work at a 75% rate.
Other tools might have a similar working %.
But mine is free and no risk. It is actually what Apple Support Team advised me to so !

I guess I must be the 1% as I did this and still have the error. To be fair, I also bought and ran the iDefrag software and had no luck. I am going to look for any VM ware when I get home and also create a bootable disk to see if that helps.

 

[madmaxmedia]

I guess I must be the 1% as I did this and still have the error. To be fair, I also bought and ran the iDefrag software and had no luck. I am going to look for any VM ware when I get home and also create a bootable disk to see if that helps.

Did you try this one? (the fsck one)

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11598440/

That has worked for me a couple of times, not sure if its the exact same thing as repairing disk/permissions from a install CD.

 

[scottdf]

Thanks - I tried that last night and still no luck. I only did it once, and am not sure if I needed to do it a few times. I plan to try it a few more times this evening, as well as create a "bootable" disc from iDefrag and let it do its thing on the whole drive.

It is too bad the error message doesn't tell you WHAT file it can't move! You would think bootcamp could find 60GB out of the 170GB I have free to create a partition, but I'll figure it out eventually. It just feels like it should not be this hard.

Thanks again, Scott

 

[madmaxmedia]

Thanks - I tried that last night and still no luck. I only did it once, and am not sure if I needed to do it a few times. I plan to try it a few more times this evening, as well as create a "bootable" disc from iDefrag and let it do its thing on the whole drive.

It is too bad the error message doesn't tell you WHAT file it can't move! You would think bootcamp could find 60GB out of the 170GB I have free to create a partition, but I'll figure it out eventually. It just feels like it should not be this hard.

Thanks again, Scott

Hmmm...that is weird that none of the solutions worked. I only ever had to do the fsck thing once (I've used it maybe 2-3 times over the years.)

A couple other things- have you tried making a smaller than 60GB partition (even if only to test it)? Also, are there any particular large files you can delete or offload to external drive to create more space? Whatsize is a good one for analyzing your hard drive-

http://whatsizemac.com/

 

[scottdf]

Yeah it is strange. I really wanted to have a larger partition, but you bring up a good point of creating even a smaller one to see if that would work. When I first ran into this error, I thought I tried to make a smaller one and got the same error - but I will for sure try again.

I would think it could carve our a solid slice that is roughly a third of my free space - but I guess not. The more I think about it, the more it has to be some ROGUE file that is causing the issue. Someone on another forum had an issue with an old 2008 office database. A different person had an issue with VM software, Crossfire, or other MAC/WINDOWS type applications - so I am also going to do a search and destroy mission to see if I can find any of these apps that might be causing the error.

Getting a partition set up is just the first step in my process to ultimately be able to play a windows game on my iMac, hopefully the rest of the steps go more smoothly.

Scott

 

[misconfig]

All,

I signed up for the forum after I ran into this issue - at first I tried several of the 'fixes' some people claimed to have thus far. I've deleted parallels and any respective files VIA the command line - after running find I know they don't exist; I still had no luck.

Fortunately for me, I'm a *nix admin for a living and I thought *why don't I just run fsck on the filesystem*, well it worked for me.

After running fsck on the disk I was able to create a Windows Partition ( For a FreeBSD install using ReFit ).

Here is my proposed 'fix'.

*** PLEASE NOTE ***

Please ensure you have the entire process either written down, printed out or on another PC screen. After the system reboots into safe mode we have to do more work before we boot back into normal operating mode.

1.) We must flag the OS to force 'fsck' on reboot ( will boot into Safe Mode ).
2.) Open Terminal ( use spotlight to find it quickly )
3.) Type the following items wrapped in the 'code' tags hit enter after each command
4.) I'm not being condescending I just want to make it clear that the '$' in front of the commands does not need to be typed ( for the ones being introduced to a *nix shell )

$ sudo nvram boot-args="-x"
$ sudo shutdown -r now

The machine will now reboot and you will see a progress bar on the bottom of the apple logo - wait until this finishes.

After this completes, log into your mac and open the terminal once again
Type the following:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="" <---- that's 2 quotation marks
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Once your machine restarts again - open up the Boot Camp Assistant and create your new partition. Please post feedback, I'd love to hear if this helps others solve this annoying issue!

 

[kpgh554]

All,

I signed up for the forum after I ran into this issue - at first I tried several of the 'fixes' some people claimed to have thus far. I've deleted parallels and any respective files VIA the command line - after running find I know they don't exist; I still had no luck.

Fortunately for me, I'm a *nix admin for a living and I thought *why don't I just run fsck on the filesystem*, well it worked for me.

After running fsck on the disk I was able to create a Windows Partition ( For a FreeBSD install using ReFit ).

Here is my proposed 'fix'.

*** PLEASE NOTE ***

Please ensure you have the entire process either written down, printed out or on another PC screen. After the system reboots into safe mode we have to do more work before we boot back into normal operating mode.

1.) We must flag the OS to force 'fsck' on reboot ( will boot into Safe Mode ).
2.) Open Terminal ( use spotlight to find it quickly )
3.) Type the following items wrapped in the 'code' tags hit enter after each command
4.) I'm not being condescending I just want to make it clear that the '$' in front of the commands does not need to be typed ( for the ones being introduced to a *nix shell )

$ sudo nvram boot-args="-x"
$ sudo shutdown -r now

The machine will now reboot and you will see a progress bar on the bottom of the apple logo - wait until this finishes.

After this completes, log into your mac and open the terminal once again
Type the following:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="" <---- that's 2 quotation marks
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Once your machine restarts again - open up the Boot Camp Assistant and create your new partition. Please post feedback, I'd love to hear if this helps others solve this annoying issue!

have you tried here http://www.apple.com/uk/support/bootcamp/ can leave out the uk bit if want but both sites same

 

[rahulthewall]

All,

I signed up for the forum after I ran into this issue - at first I tried several of the 'fixes' some people claimed to have thus far. I've deleted parallels and any respective files VIA the command line - after running find I know they don't exist; I still had no luck.

Fortunately for me, I'm a *nix admin for a living and I thought *why don't I just run fsck on the filesystem*, well it worked for me.

After running fsck on the disk I was able to create a Windows Partition ( For a FreeBSD install using ReFit ).

Here is my proposed 'fix'.

*** PLEASE NOTE ***

Please ensure you have the entire process either written down, printed out or on another PC screen. After the system reboots into safe mode we have to do more work before we boot back into normal operating mode.

1.) We must flag the OS to force 'fsck' on reboot ( will boot into Safe Mode ).
2.) Open Terminal ( use spotlight to find it quickly )
3.) Type the following items wrapped in the 'code' tags hit enter after each command
4.) I'm not being condescending I just want to make it clear that the '$' in front of the commands does not need to be typed ( for the ones being introduced to a *nix shell )

$ sudo nvram boot-args="-x"
$ sudo shutdown -r now

The machine will now reboot and you will see a progress bar on the bottom of the apple logo - wait until this finishes.

After this completes, log into your mac and open the terminal once again
Type the following:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="" <---- that's 2 quotation marks
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Once your machine restarts again - open up the Boot Camp Assistant and create your new partition. Please post feedback, I'd love to hear if this helps others solve this annoying issue!

I can confirm that this works.

 

[faraziit]

Hasn't worked for me. The error I've been dealing with is getting Boot Camp Assistant to realize that I have more than 10 GB free—even though I have more than 21 GB of free space, it continues to believe that I'm under 10 GB. I thought this method ought to work, since there's probably a rogue file somewhere causing disk fragmentation. but no such luck. Any ideas?

All,

I signed up for the forum after I ran into this issue - at first I tried several of the 'fixes' some people claimed to have thus far. I've deleted parallels and any respective files VIA the command line - after running find I know they don't exist; I still had no luck.

Fortunately for me, I'm a *nix admin for a living and I thought *why don't I just run fsck on the filesystem*, well it worked for me.

After running fsck on the disk I was able to create a Windows Partition ( For a FreeBSD install using ReFit ).

Here is my proposed 'fix'.

*** PLEASE NOTE ***

Please ensure you have the entire process either written down, printed out or on another PC screen. After the system reboots into safe mode we have to do more work before we boot back into normal operating mode.

1.) We must flag the OS to force 'fsck' on reboot ( will boot into Safe Mode ).
2.) Open Terminal ( use spotlight to find it quickly )
3.) Type the following items wrapped in the 'code' tags hit enter after each command
4.) I'm not being condescending I just want to make it clear that the '$' in front of the commands does not need to be typed ( for the ones being introduced to a *nix shell )

$ sudo nvram boot-args="-x"
$ sudo shutdown -r now

The machine will now reboot and you will see a progress bar on the bottom of the apple logo - wait until this finishes.

After this completes, log into your mac and open the terminal once again
Type the following:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="" <---- that's 2 quotation marks
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Once your machine restarts again - open up the Boot Camp Assistant and create your new partition. Please post feedback, I'd love to hear if this helps others solve this annoying issue!

 

[a.t]

Re : Same problem

Hi Dude , first of all will like to say thanks for the helping to solve this problem , but sad to say after following your terminal code it still prompted same message " 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."

It's pain OMG

All,

I signed up for the forum after I ran into this issue - at first I tried several of the 'fixes' some people claimed to have thus far. I've deleted parallels and any respective files VIA the command line - after running find I know they don't exist; I still had no luck.

Fortunately for me, I'm a *nix admin for a living and I thought *why don't I just run fsck on the filesystem*, well it worked for me.

After running fsck on the disk I was able to create a Windows Partition ( For a FreeBSD install using ReFit ).

Here is my proposed 'fix'.

*** PLEASE NOTE ***

Please ensure you have the entire process either written down, printed out or on another PC screen. After the system reboots into safe mode we have to do more work before we boot back into normal operating mode.

1.) We must flag the OS to force 'fsck' on reboot ( will boot into Safe Mode ).
2.) Open Terminal ( use spotlight to find it quickly )
3.) Type the following items wrapped in the 'code' tags hit enter after each command
4.) I'm not being condescending I just want to make it clear that the '$' in front of the commands does not need to be typed ( for the ones being introduced to a *nix shell )

$ sudo nvram boot-args="-x"
$ sudo shutdown -r now

The machine will now reboot and you will see a progress bar on the bottom of the apple logo - wait until this finishes.

After this completes, log into your mac and open the terminal once again
Type the following:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="" <---- that's 2 quotation marks
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Once your machine restarts again - open up the Boot Camp Assistant and create your new partition. Please post feedback, I'd love to hear if this helps others solve this annoying issue!

 

[djtut111]

BootCamp problem

cant move files...(see the picture)
what should I do to solve that problem?
I want to install windows 7 ultimate in other partition on macbook pro 2011
thanks

 

[balamw]

cant move files...(see the picture)
what should I do to solve that problem?
I want to install windows 7 ultimate in other partition on macbook pro 2011
thanks

Take a look at some of the posts above yours. This is far from uncommon.

B