Huge Problem - Can't Install Windows via Bootcamp!

[Nym]

Hi everyone!

I'm in a huge bind.

Here's what happened:

I have a 24" iMac (stock model) and two days after I bought it (October 2006) I installed Windows XP SP2 via Bootcamp, no problems, all went well etc..

Two months ago a friend of mine that manages a PC Hardware/Software Store wanted to know if Vista was worth it and gladly gave me a copy to serve as "guinea pig". Ok, nothing wrong either, I didn't even had to go into Bootcamp, I just restarted my Mac, put in the Vista installation disc and held the C key to boot from the disc.

I installed Vista and have been using for a couple of months but I bought a game yesterday which is not compatible with it, and since I don't really care about Vista anyway, I wanted to revert to XP.

I went into Apple's site, downloaded Bootcamp 1.3 and (within the Bootcamp Assistant) I deleted the partition I had before and tried to create a new 60GB partition for XP. The problem is that, when bootcamp is trying to partition the disk it gave me an error "Bootcamp cannot partition the drive because the filesystem bla bla bla.. please repair the disk from the Mac OS X Install Disk", Ok, I inserted OSX's install disk and did the repair that bootcamp asked. Went again into OSX and tried to partition yet again, one more error, "Bootcamp cannot partition the drive because some files could not be moved, please backup and format the disk using the Mac OS X Install Disc".

Ok, Is there any application out there that isn't bootcamp to create a BIOS booting partition? Or is there a file management app that is independent of any OS and allows me to delete the files that may be preventing Bootcamp from creating the partition?

I just don't know what to do, I don't have an External HD to backup my stuff and no way I'm gonna lose it all! Still, I want to play the games I own

Anyone have a suggestion? Would be appreciated...

Thx in advance.

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

How much free space is left? What size partition are you trying to create?

 

[Nym]

How much free space is left? What size partition are you trying to create?

I have 77GB of free space and I'm trying to create a partition of 60GB for Windows.

Now my iMac is "spitting out" my Tiger Install Disc.. so, I can't even run the disk repair again

 

[Nym]

I just tried to partition again using bootcamp but this time I selected 50GB and it's asking me to restart my Mac w00t!

I'm gonna try it.. hope it works, will post the outcome.

Thx anyway Fleetwood!!

 

[Ibanez Strummer]

I had a very similar problem on my c2d macbook. I tried to use boot camp to install xp professional using the boot camp assistant and it came up with the same message "Bootcamp cannot partition the drive because the filesystem bla bla bla.. please repair the disk from the Mac OS X Install Disk" except mine had repair disk permissions at the end and didn't state to use the install disk.

I repeatedly repaired permissions and retried, but had no luck so instead bought the new Parallels 3. Had no problems at all with that and am happily using it for games (the only real reason you'd want windows on a mac!)