Can't make Boot Camp partition

[happydudeca]

To make a long story short, I cannot get past the stage in the Boot Camp install process where you make a partition on the hard drive for Windows.

I get this error 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.

I do not have a removable hard drive to back up my data on. I've got two flash drives that I put my most important documents on but that's it. I can use my IPod Nano to store my ITunes library until this gets figured out. The only data I would really lose would be my firefox information, though I did get the book mark history, my video game saved data (4 games), and programs like Word 04, Flip4Mac, and other miscellaneous gadgets. I have already shelled out $80 for the Leopard upgrade and $120 for XP. I have no other need for a removable hard drive and as such I will not buy one.

I just got off the phone with Apple Tech Support, one hour of it , and after trying repairing disk permissions and other Disk Utility functions we got nowhere. I tried booting from the Leopard disk and doing the same Disk utility repair/repair permissions to no avail. Varying the size of the partition had no effect. I tried wiping the free space on my hard drive via Disk Utilities and that did nothing. I have plenty of room on my hard drive, it's 120GB and I have a shade over 60GB remaining. The information on "Mac HD" is as follows:

Mount Point : / Capacity : 111.5 GB (119,690,149,888 Bytes)
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Available : 62.4 GB (67,002,867,712 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : Yes Used : 49.1 GB (52,687,282,176 Bytes)
Number of Folders : 135,138 Number of Files : 623,284

During the rebook with the Leopard CD, there were apparently some disk permission errors. During the repair permissions process it appeared they could not be repaired but were modified or something to that effect. I just ran another -verify disk-verify disk permissions-repair disk permissions and these errors did not show up. A subsequent attempt at partitioning failed.

I was directed to call tech support tomorrow AM and am supposed to ask for someone in 'Tier 2', but I'm hoping someone has some ideas that do not including wiping my entire hard drive and starting from scratch. Particularly since I don't know if that will actually work

 

[mikekim75]

Re: can partition for bootcamp

You most likely have .dmg files or any type of img file will keep it from partitioning. Some where on your drive there is one or more. use the finder search for .dmg and get them off. Also remove all devices.

 

[n8236]

Unless you format, here's the only solution I know of.

iDefrag

 

[happydudeca]

IDefrag may have worked, but I opted for an erase and clean install. Now have a 40gb partition for Windows gaming needs.

The tech I spoke with yesterday said a defrag program may work, but that the cause of this was my Tiger upgraded to Leopard. Because of the upgrade the Mac could not move the files as it needed to. Gave me a chance to start from a clean slate which is kind of nice. Feels like having a new computer again.

For those that bring this up in searches, IDegraf will probably solve this issue, but backing up your data via TimeMachine on a removable hard drive, followed by a clean erase/install is a sure fire solution.

 

[-Ussu]

same problem. i defraged my disc with diskwarrior, i have 70 gigs freee on my imac 250gb, bu i can't even make a 5 gb partition. My system is the one needed.

 

[yellow]

Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone to an external.
Then clone it back.
Boom, enough contiguous disk space to redo Boot Camp.

 

[MaskedPhantom]

Unless you format, here's the only solution I know of.

iDefrag

Make sure to use the "Compact" algorithm. This will create enough free continuous space for the partition.