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Mkz

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 23, 2007
158
2
Manchester, UK
Hi there,

I need to use some software for my course at university and typically it's windows only so I created a boot camp partition and after what's weeks and weeks of trouble getting it to work properly, which I decided was down to Windows 7 I deleted the partition and now I want to create another for XP but I get the error:

"The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved"

I've been searching Google for a while and had a suggestion that I defrag my HD so I have done but it hasn't helped. I really don't want to wipe my Hard Drive to get this to work.

Thanks a lot.

Max
 
I am having the same issue. Used Tech Tool Pro 5 and it couldn't move the files. Also tried SpeedTool, but no luck there either. I haven't tried iDefrag though.

Do you get the same error even when your largest free area is large enough for the bootcamp partition?
 
I had this error the first time I tried to install Bootcamp, and nothing I could do would fix it. The final solution was to back up my entire Mac, reformat the drive and install the OS from scratch. Then make the bootcamp partition. Finally restore my Mac. It's a painful process but it worked. For some reason there are just a few things that can't be moved and they happen to be fragmented on your machine into the "free" space. The fundamental problem is that you don't have enough contiguous free space.
 
I've had this one too when i closed the partition and tried to create a fresh one for windows 7.

All you have to do is boot with your OSX dvd and use disk utility to repair disk/disk permissions on you drive as your previous partition will have left some files in the wrong spot.

this cant be done from OSX directly as it cant amend the hard disk while in use.
 
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