Bootcamp help

A

apocalypselat3r

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I am running on a souped up macbook. I have more than enough specs to run what i desire to run. I am trying to set up boot camp so I can run such a program, but I cant get past the partition. When I am in the bootcamp assistant beta, and i click partition once i set my desired hardrive amount for windows xp; after it goes a bit, I get a message. I says; your disc cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. then below that message it reads; back up the disk and use disk utility to format the disk as a single mac OS extended volume. restor your information to the disk and try using boot camp assistant again. What does that mean??? Please I need this so badly. How do i get past this problem.
 
What's a 'souped up macbook'?

Here's some partition info from the Boot Camp installation and Setup guide
I can’t partition my disk.
In order to partition your disk and install Windows XP using Boot Camp Assistant, the disk must be a single partition, formatted as a Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) volume. If you have already partitioned your disk using Disk Utility or some other utility, you cannot use Boot Camp Assistant until you restore your disk to a single-partition Mac OS X volume.
Boot Camp Assistant only works with internal disks. You cannot use Boot Camp Assistant to partition and install Windows XP on an external disk.
Click to expand...
So, BootCamp will help you if you have only one partition on the hard drive.
If you have data on the part of the hard drive that Boot Camp wants to use, then you may need to remove some files to get enough space to create the Windows partition. Keep in mind that OS X needs plenty of space to work also.

How much space is available on your hard drive now, and how large is the Windows partition that you want Boot Camp to create?
 
there is about 20 gb on my hardrive, avaliable 19 i guess. and i am only asking for 5 on my windows. since all i want to do on it is play counterstrike.
 
apocalypselat3r said:
there is about 20 gb on my hardrive, avaliable 19 i guess. and i am only asking for 5 on my windows. since all i want to do on it is play counterstrike.
Click to expand...

'bump?'
Is it 19, or 20, or what? Bootcamp needs a minimum of 10 GB space to create even the 5GB partition. I think you are having problems because you don't have enough space available on your hard drive, and you need to make sure if you still want to try BootCamp/Windows.
Download the latest update from today for BootCamp. Maybe some small change in that will give you better luck.
Do you still have the original single partition on your hard drive - or did you previously add one or more partitions before trying BootCamp? You won't be able to set up BootCamp on a drive that does not have just one partition.
 
thats what that guy before you was helping me on, he asked me how much space i had left, i told him 19 or 20 gigs. I just want to partition 5 gbs for my windows. thats all. so like but as you can read above, it doesnt let me.
 
Please answer the question, as it's the most relevant to the error that you get.
Do you have one partition now on your hard drive?
If you do not, then you have the re-format to go back to one partition.
The Boot Camp assistant will NOT work if you have more than one partition. It will also give you errors if you don't have enough space on your drive.
It will require more free space than you want to use for a partition (double the partition to get the free space you need), and will error out if there's not enough space.

Download the latest update from today for BootCamp. Maybe some small change in that will give you better luck, or a better explanation for the partition failure.
 
how do you re-format to go back to one partition? I downloaded and used parallels before. May that have partitioned the discs. How do i re-format to go back to one partition. thanks by the way for helping me thus far.
 
If you still get the 'some files cannot be moved' response, then you will probably need to delete some files to make enough space on the drive..... :)
 
You have a drive file for Parallels, not a partition on the hard drive.
If you run the BootCamp, the page that provides you with information about the partitions will help you more than anything so far. It will show you what partition you have, along with the change that the Windows partition will provide.

Also, your Disk Utility will show you how many partitions you have on your hard drive.

If you setup BootCamp, and also still have Parallels, you will then have 2 separate Windows installs, with each one taking up at least several GBytes.
BootCamp uses a dedicated partition, Parallels is in a folder, and does not need its own partition.
Are you sure that's what you really want to do? - (2 separate Windows installs on the same hard drive?)
 
apocalypselat3r said:
I have enough space. I think you were right when you said I needto reformat my drive to go back to one partition. How do I do that?
Click to expand...

Reformat means Erase, and you lose everything on the drive that you do not have backed up, and you would then have to restore ALL your software from scratch - and, is THAT what you want to do? Easy enough to do with the restore DVDs that came with your MacBook, it just takes a few hours. AND, the BootCamp/Windows installation would work then.
 
no, i used to have parallels, i deleted it along with all its files and users. i am going to go on my disk utility and try to figure things out. thanks for your effort thus far.
 
the restore dvds that come with my macbook? like the two gray dvds that say mac os x install disc 1 + 2. And i do archival install so that none of my data is erased right? so then my disk should be on a single partition? i checked my disc utility and it said it is mac os extended volume. i guess that is the problem eh? So do i pop in those two gray mac os x discs? and make sure that i dont erase any of my information? that would reformat my drive.
 
Disk Utility will show you two lines. for your drive. One for the drive device, which shows manufacturers info, and a second line with the name of your hard drive (such as Macintosh HD, or something else if you have changed that.). each drive that you have available will show this same info - one line for the device info, and then one line for each partition on that device. If you have more than just those two lines for your hard drive, then you do have multiple partitions.

Just a thought - if you are using FileVault security, you should turn that off before trying to create the partition in BootCamp.

Reformatting is not your next step, it's your last step if all else fails, so don't try to go there just yet.
If you DO have to change your partitions (you have more than two lines in boot camp), then you don't have the option of an Archive and Install. You have to erase, and you lose everything, as I said before.
 
ok, i have 25 gb avaliable, i am pretty sure i only have one partition because a) it only says mac os extended (journal) in my disk utility, and b) i dont think i have done anything that would result in creating a second partition. Do i need to delete even more room? I only want to run one program once i get access to windos, so i only need 5 gb. this is really annoying.
 
You should be OK. Open your Disk Utility, and repair Disk Permissions, then restart, and try Boot Camp again.

Have you downloaded and installed the BootCamp update?

Be sure to burn a drivers disk when you first start BootCamp, as there is some changes to the Win drivers installs.
 
ough, i thought that was going to work. it didnt, it did free up some extra room though, now i have 25 gb. which is surely enough- sorry, how do you know if you only have one partition. in disk utility when i click macintosh hd- on the bottom the format says it is mac os extended (journaled) which is what boot camp tells me to have. so what on earth is the problem.

thanks again for sticking with me all this way, if your next few instructions dont work, i am surely giving up.
 
I have the same problem you do with Bootcamp. I don't think it has anything to do with disk space. The "Can't Move" error is because the Boot Camp assistant has to create a new partition on your drive, and where it wants to write partition data to has data in it. So, BootCamp then tries to move the data (file) to another sector/cluster on the drive, but can't for some reason. My guess is that there is a process running that has a lock on a file that the Boot Camp assistant wants to move. Make sure that you have absolutely no apps running, and that your menubar has no apps running in it. (Like MenuMeters, or Gmail Notifier, etc...)
 
When I did the bootcamp thing, it gave me the same message. I deleted some stuff, and then it worked. The little things (like menu meters etc.) should not matter at all, really. Still, I'd make sure to try with a freshly rebooted system with no apps/tools whatsoever open.

If you _do_ have some sort of external harddrive, it could be helpful to move some stuff over there. Say: If you can free up 30 GB, chances are that the partitioner has an easier time. It needs 5 GB of _continuous_ free space in order to create the partition, and that's the real problem. Besides: 5 GB are _very_ low for WinXP, btw. And changing it afterwards can be a _real_ drag (if not impossible without having to backup everything and erasing the complete drive), so I'd give it at least 8 GB - and that's only for the system and one or two apps and utilities.
 
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