Cannot partition my disk

C

Carlin Green

Registered
I'm running the latest version of Snow Leopard, and I want to create a partition for Windows 7. When I go to Boot Camp, I get this message.



So, I went to Disk Utility. My startup disk is in the required format, and I don't have an existing partition for Windows, as far as I can see.



Does anyone know what the deal is here?
 
The deal is:
You have a second partition on your hard drive, named "Time Machine Backups"
So, that's why the Boot Camp assistant is warning you.
You cannot use Boot Camp to add a partition, if you already have more than one partition on the hard drive
And, (thought I should mention this) your internal hard drive is definitely not a good place for Time Machine backups.
What will you do if that hard drive decides to go south? You lose your drive, and the back ups, too.
Time Machine backups should be on an external drive.
 
Yes, the Time Machine backup was a mistake, there is no need for it to be there. Try as I might, I cannot erase it. I select the Time Machine Backups, select Erase, and it goes through the process, but the Backups are still there. I'm not incredibly savvy, is there another way I should be deleting it?
 
Erasing the files on that partition will not remove the partition.
Open your Disk Utility
Click on your hard drive from the list. It will have the manufacturer's name in that line. and not a line that has the name of the partition. In the graphics that you posted, it's the line with Fujitsu.
Then click on the Partition tab.
Select the Time Machine partition from the list on the left, then click the (-) at the bottom of that window. That should remove that time machine partition.
If that completes, you should then see only the one partition. I would suggest restarting your Mac at that point.
Try Boot Camp again.
 
There's a program called Camptune that will resize your Boot Camp partition. Also, I use a program to back up my Boot Camp partition. It's called WinClone, and it's free (the legal kind of free).

UPDATE: I can't get to the WinClone site. Disk Utility (in the Applications/Utilities folder) will make an image of the Boot Camp partition in 10.6. I don't know if that is new or if that is possible in 10.5.

To use Disk Utility to back up your Boot Camp partition into a disk image:
1. Run Disk Utility (click the Spotlight magnifying glass in the upper right hand corner of the screen and type "disk u" Press Return when Disk Utility shows up on the list).
2. Click the Boot Camp partition in the list on the left side of Disk Utility's window.
3. Click the "New Image" icon at the top of the window.
4. Decide where to put this large image. Hint: on one of your large external drives, probably.

Backing up your Boot Camp partition will help prevent data loss in the future.

Here's the link for CampTune:
www.paragon-software.com/home/camptune/

For WinClone:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25932/winclone
[Update: See above.]
 
Last edited:
DeltaMac, I was able to get rid of the TimeMachine backups following your instructions, thank you. I now have only the OS X disk. Now I'm running Boot Camp assistant to create a new partition for Windows. I chose the 32 GB option, and now I'm getting this message.



As I am not intimately familiar with the way these things work in OS X, what steps should I take to format my disc?
 
If you re-format your hard drive, you will lose everything that you don't have backed up.
So, your first step is to make sure that you have everything backed up that you want to keep.
Before you do that, here's another tip that may help: open Disk Utility. Click on your hard drive, and click the Erase tab, then click Erase Free Space. Don't choose one of the multi-pass options, as that will work your hard drive harder than necessary.
Or, download a utility that will allow you to defragment your hard drive. This is one of the few times that a defrag may help you on a Mac...
 
Carlin Green, I bought iDefrag for $30. There's some debate as to how effective defragging is nowadays, but I believe that iDefrag is effective when used occasionally, especially if the drive is nearly full and heavily used. iDefrag is one of the few (if only) defragmentation utilities that respect HFS+'s hot files clustering.

If you're interested:

www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php
 
I have everything backed up, and I did as you said, Delta, and went through the Erase Free Space process. It has not solved the issue and I still get the same error message as before. Is there something else I should do exactly, to reformat the disk like it wants me to? Again, forgive me as I have little knowledge of this subject.
 
Boot to your OS X installer DVD
Go to Disk Utility (in the Utilities menu)
Choose your hard drive from the list - it will have the manufacturer's info line.
Click the Erase tab, name your partition if you like. Make sure that the format is set for Mac OS Extended (journaled), then click the Erase button.
That will take you back to one partition.
Quit Disk Utility, and continue on with the OS X install.
 
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