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danerh

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 16, 2006
47
0
I am running the bootcamp utility... and with just 5GB of drive i am trying to partition, it says that files can not be moved etc, and i cannot carry on with the process. and so i figure i should defragment to get the space all in one section of my harddrive (as is my understanding of defragmenting...). I am reasonably new to mac computers though... how can i do this? or any other solutions?!
Thanks!
Dane.
 
Well, that's your problem right there.

Boot camp requires that you have 5Gb free on the OSX volume in addition to what you want to use for boot camp. I'd get to deleting files.
 
i have 15GB avaialble

Appologies for the confusion... i have 15GB available, but the partition i am trying to make FOR XP was set to the minium of 5GB...
 
Well, I know OSX defragments small files by itself.

That being said, I don't know what it does with larger files. I've heard that Parallels installs can cause problems with Boot Camp, but apart from that I've got no real idea.
 
****... i've just tried the demo of parallels today, but it didnt work out how i need it... hence this boot camp option... not good.
 
Yeah i have already done that... i followed all the instructions. I know someone who has some disk warrior or something... but i'm finding nothing when searching google for any defragmentation software... hhmmph. Thanks though man... anything you can come up with!
 
Mac OS X does defrag files automatically. But there is a difference between defragging and optimizing. Defragging takes all of the pieces of a file and literally, physically reassembles them in one contiguous location on the drive. That way the system doesn't have to perform a juggling act keeping track of all of the parts of a file. Again, OS X does this automatically, provided you have enough empty space for the Mac to work its magic.

Optimizing is the act of moving all defragged data files into one section of the drive, ditto for all fonts, all applications, etc. Optimizing will then give you a nice big, empty, contiguous space for a BootCamp partition.

You can optimize with a utility like TechTools. OS X can't optimize itself. That being said, you are going to have problems because you don't have enough free space to begin with. You need a bigger drive, a second drive or and external drive. Or you need to delete all of those YouTube videos!
 
I am running the bootcamp utility... and with just 5GB of drive i am trying to partition, it says that files can not be moved etc, and i cannot carry on with the process. and so i figure i should defragment to get the space all in one section of my harddrive (as is my understanding of defragmenting...). I am reasonably new to mac computers though... how can i do this? or any other solutions?!
Thanks!
Dane.

By far, the easiest way to defrag a HD is to clone everything off it onto another drive, reformat the drive, and copy everything back over to it.

2 free/sharware apps for this are SuperDuper & CarbonCopyCloner. Both are extremely easy to use and reasonably fast & painless.......

both can be downloaded from www.versiontracker.com or www.macupdate.com (look there for tons of other cool mac s/w too!)
 
So that's why Optimising your Computer after a Security/OS update takes so damn long.

not really, as that process is similiar but different in many ways than just simple defragging other files on your hd......

Of course the time required for either will increase with larger HD's too :p.
But my 74GB Raptor (boot drive) usually takes about 8-10 mins to clone, and 5 or 6mins with the OS optimization. And my 160gb storage drive takes just under 2x that long.........
 
Appologies for the confusion... i have 15GB available, but the partition i am trying to make FOR XP was set to the minium of 5GB...

Doesn't Boot Camp require at least 10GB for the Windows partition + a 5GB buffer?

Because then 15GB isn't going to be enough to keep ~8GB free on your HDD for decent virtual memory performance.
 
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