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pica93

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 21, 2008
63
0
I have been trying for ages to partition my snow leopard macbook, so i can install 10.5 leopard to run pro tools. But have been unable to :(

I keep getting a message on disk utility that says failed.

i have tried booting it up from the dvd and it says the same, i tried partitioning with boot camp wizard still no luck. I have check for problems and repaired the Mac HDD.

I cant think what else to do.

Any Ideas?

Cheers
 

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Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
You don't have enough free contiguous space in order to split off a partition of that size.

Your best bet is to make a Time Machine back up. Then erase your MacBook's disk. After that in Disk Utility make the two partitions the size that you want and them restore Snow Leopard to one. Finally install Leopard on the other partition.
 

patrixl

Suspended
Jun 19, 2009
107
0
You don't have enough free contiguous space in order to split off a partition of that size.

Your best bet is to make a Time Machine back up. Then erase your MacBook's disk. After that in Disk Utility make the two partitions the size that you want and them restore Snow Leopard to one. Finally install Leopard on the other partition.

+1 that's exactly what's going on and the best solution.

2nd best solution is to defragment the drive but that will take hours if not a whole day
 

pica93

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 21, 2008
63
0
Try making the partition smaller.

Just tried that, and still the same error.

Does anyone know of a way and what program i need to install leopard in a virtual machine?

I tried parallels but that said it can only be used for OS X Server.
 

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
13
Yay Area, CA
Just tried that, and still the same error.

Does anyone know of a way and what program i need to install leopard in a virtual machine?

I tried parallels but that said it can only be used for OS X Server.

You can only run OSX Server in a virtual machine, not OSX client. You don't actually need OSX Server as the Host to run a OS X guest. The only restriction is the Guest needs to be "Server"
 

patrixl

Suspended
Jun 19, 2009
107
0
Just tried that, and still the same error.

Does anyone know of a way and what program i need to install leopard in a virtual machine?

I tried parallels but that said it can only be used for OS X Server.

Please don't ignore the other answers - this happens because you have critical files scattered all over your hard drives, that can't be moved in order to resize the partition. Also known as fragmentation (as opposed to the typical old-school style of Windows fragmentation where bits of files are scattered all over the disk, OS X keeps files contiguous but does end up scattering them around in the long run regardless).

The solution is to defragment (will surely take you days with nearly 300GB of data), or to backup to time machine, erase the drive (and repartition at the same time) and restore. That will solve your problem for sure.

Patrix.
 

fluffyx

macrumors 6502
Oct 25, 2007
313
1
I don't consider defragging a solution. If your computer loses power, freezes, or otherwise shuts down during the defrag, you'll experience data loss. I've been in this situation, and it's unpleasant!

I'm familiar with that Disk Utility error message, and the previous posters who state that backing up with Time Machine, erasing, partitioning, and restoring your data with Time Machine have the exactly right idea.

In all truth, would you consider upgrading your hard drive? You can get a 500 GB hard drive for less than $100, and have a lot more space as a result :).
 
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