I Can't Partition My Hard Drive (Files Can't Be Moved)

Hey,
today I wanted to install Windows XP Professional (SP 3). I printed the Boot Camp Documentation and followed the Boot Camp Assistant. I chose a 12 GB partition (my iMac's 320 GB hard disk drive currently has a little less than 40 GB of free space available) and began the partitioning process. The progress bar slowly grew from left to right.
After a minute or two I realized that I need an installation disc for Windows. I grabbed a 4.7 GB DVD-RW (which was already written to) and slipped it into the Optiarc drive. Shortly after that the partitioning process failed with an error message saying that there were files that can't be moved.
Slightly discouraged, I decided to create my Windows install disc before dealing with this problem. Although this wasn't such a straight-forward task (the first burning attempt failed due to a medium write error right before it finished, and don't forget weird noises when inserting the disc the second time) I managed to successfully burn the .iso image containing the Windows install within three attempts.
I then tried to partition my disk again, numerous times, but didn't get lucky; the same error after the same two, three minutes. What is it with Boot Camp and my hard drive? I hope there is an answer to that, and I hope the solution wont require me to backup all of my files, reformat my HDD in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", and restore all of my files from the backup, as I don't have an external hard drive to which I could backup to!
I KNOW I am stupid for even trying this without a backup, and I would be devastated if I lost all of my data, but I am an optimist (in respect to catastrophes at least). I also need to get Windows ASAP, so, while a backup drive is on its way, I decided to just risk it.
Has anyone here had the same issue and managed to work around it? (Preferably without any backups involved!) If not, does somebody have advice, OTHER than… (well, you know already)?
I would appreciate any responses, even if, I guess, it's just to tell me that I should most definitely wait until I get an external disk to backup to.
Thanks,
temhawk

Hello, The Hatter, I read about the 'trick' of backing up, erasing, and restoring too, but I figured it would take longer than defragmenting the disk.
But the defragmentation process has just finished! so I'm gonna try to run Boot Camp again soon!
Thanks for your helpfulness, anyway.
And P.S. I didn't clone my system onto the external drive, I just inserted the Mac OS X Install CD, rebooted holding down the "C" key, and installed a fresh Snow Leopard system onto the predetermined partition. I will use that in cases of emergency, when my main/internal system becomes unusable.

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Can I partition a hard drive and keep files on separate partition?

That is, can I partition a hard drive and have the system software on one drive, and everything else on the other? That is, have the system software on one drive, and on the other have pictures, music, documents, and all other files other than the system software? Thanks. David

Hi GK1951, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Great question, as a matter of fact it does... or would, but the Devil is in the Details as they say.
IME, OSX works best with 100+GB free disk space, so if that partition scheme cuts that down then you'll lose speed, but ony a few would notice the diff until you get down to 30 GB free space.
I can't say much, but my VM at the moment is 143.55 GB, I've been told that isn't a real number, but hey, it means something!
But there are so many factors affecting this that really, the only rule that seems to hold is Give OSX as much HD Free Space as you can & it'll be happy.
I imagine on the MacPro you could say use the outer Partition of several Disks... one for the OS, one for VM, one for APPs, etc. and gain the most!
Maybe these will help...
iMac/24"/2.4 GHz/4GB RAM/320 GB SATA drive, You can see that Cached values account for more than the Zone on the HD really.
Little 4K Random R&Ws suffer greatly no matter what...

Can a use a partitioned external hard drive to create a disk image? I tried, doesn't seem to work using disk manager.

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OK, it's very bad computing to use a backup disk for anything but a backup. The reason being is if/when the HD crashes you will have lost not only all your backup but the data files. While I commend you for wanting redundant backup, you really need separate EHDs for doing so. Format each EHD using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using the GUID parttition. When you connect, OS X will ask if you want to use that drive as a Time Machine backup drive, select yes and then let it backup. On the second EHD format the same way however do not use TM as a backup, this time I'd suggest an app such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of the internal HD. Leave both EHDs connected and TM will backup new or changed files automatically on a hourly basis. The clone you will need to set to backup on the schedule you want. For example I have my SuperDuper EHD set to backup only changed or updated files at 2AM every day.
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HT4818 When I try to partition my hard drive for Windows 7, I get an error saying The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. I have a 2006 Macbook Pro I believe and I really need assistance as soon as possible.

I have Windows 7 Premium Home and I have downloaded the Drivers and when I click Boot Camp Assistance to partition my hard drive, it says, "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 can't do any backup really because I don't have an external hard drive to work with. I tried repairing disk permissions but that did not do anything. I really need a lot of help with this with some easy, step-by-step tutorials or something. I believe I have a 2006 version of Macbook Pro(4,1).

Once you have obtained an external drive and connected it you will 'clone' your internal drive to it.
Download Carbon Copy Cloner (it is not free but there is a fully functional trial version which is). Use it to clone your internal drive to your external drive. When that is done you will reboot from the clone and use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive (choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) as the format (this is normally preset, but check). Make sure to give the external drive a 'distinctive' name, don't want to get drives mixed up in this process.
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I dropped my macbook pro and the screen is broken can i still use it with an external monitor? Or can I or how do I transfer hard drive files to my mac mini?

I dropped my 17" macbook pro and the screen is broken. Can I still use it with an external monitor? When I plugged it into a monitor I had used it with before, I'm not able to see anything on the macbook screen to control it. It came on but I just got the blue screen with nothing else after typing in my password. (Didn't see the password form just assumed it was there somewhere and it did go from space to blue screen but no desktop icons, files, dock strip at top or anything else, just blank blue screen) so I can't access the system preferences.
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I'd like to promise you that everything will be fine if you just get the monitor going - but it's hard to know what the hardware damage might be. It might be the monitor, or the damage might be greater.
Your best solution would be visit your local Apple Store and let them know what your situation is. They have access to diagnostics you don't, and they might be able to the best way to save your data and keep you computing. It's still not covered, but they can tell you what your current options are.
Um, you might consider investing in a backup drive.
And there other repair options, too. Powerbook Medic http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/pages.php?pageid=67 offers reliable repairs, and quotes prices well under Apple's.

Can I partition my hard drive to hold Windows 8 (Beta), instead of Windows 7, and can I do this with an external CD drive?

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Also, the reason I'm choosing Windows 8 (Beta) is because it's free.
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Thank you.

Can I partition my hard drive to hold Windows 8 (Beta), instead of Windows 7, and can I do this with an external CD drive?
No and No.
1: Apple only supports Windows 7 at this time in BootCamp (direct install into a bootable partition) because Win 8 is in Beta and no Mac hardware drivers are available yet from Apple for Windows 8.
2: You can't install Windows from a external cd drive into BootCamp, it has to be a internal one far as I know, perhaps a USB will work I don't know.
Yes:
1: You can download and install Windows 8 Beta into a the free virtual machine software called VirtualBox, which Windows 8 will run in a window in OS X. This is better as it's still in Beta and Windows Beta releases will expire. Plus Windows 8 is a pain in the behind and you will want to be able to have VirtualBox or OS X be able to regain control over the computer.
http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/03/try-windows-8-consumer-preview-virtualbox/
Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?

Hi. My iMac hard drive is running Mavericks. I have an old version of Quark Xpress (3.32) which won't run in Mavericks. Can I partition my hard drive and run an older system on one partition, so I can access my Quark? Is that possible?

Hi. My iMac hard drive is running Mavericks. I have an old version of Quark Xpress (3.32) which won't run in Mavericks. Can I partition my hard drive and run an older system on one partition, so I can access my Quark? Is that possible?

Hi ancelau,
QuarkXPress 3 is a Classic Mac OS application, so you need a version of OS X that still supports Classic. I believe 10.4 was the last one.
So if you have an iMac that boots with 10.4, then yes that is possible. I doubt though that newer Macs boot with OS X 10.4.
So why don't you upgrade QuarkXPress 3 to a newer version? I am not just asking that because I want you to spend money with us.
Typically using software that was released almost 20 years ago is just feasible when you keep an environment that was current at the time of release or a few years after, so an older Mac with a operating system present at that time. 20 years in IT is a lot.
So my opinion is that on a new Mac with a brand new operating system you need to use something a bit more current.
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[SOLVED] I can't get GParted to partition my hard drive

I want to install Arch Linux. However, I am unable to partition my hard drive so Arch can have it's own partition.
I currently have Xubuntu installed on my laptop but I'm using the Gnome Classic Desktop. In GParted, I am unable to resize my 200GB+ ext3 partition, /dev/sda1.
e2label: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open /dev/sda1 Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
dumpe2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
dumpe2fs: filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open /dev/sda1
What can I do to resolve this issue? I really want to use Arch Linux because I'm sick of Ubuntu. However, I want to dual boot Ubuntu in case I screw something up in Arch so I can have something to fall back on.
I have searched Google a little bit but all I can seem to find is information about RAID drives. I am fairly sure I never setup anything as raid on this laptop.
Last edited by kenny09 (2011-10-01 21:06:47)

You can only resize unmounted partitions, so you will need to start from a livecd (the archlinux install-cd can be used for that). You may then use parted from the cli to resize the filesystem plus partition.
If that fails, you might want to perform these two separate actions yourself manually. Have a look at resize2fs to resize the partition. Then use fdisk/cfdisk/parted to recreate the partition (just delete it, then recreate it using the same starting point and you should be fine)

When i was partitioning my hard drive i ran out of power (so it closed in the middle of the process). now when i try to partition it says Couldn't modify partition map because file system verification failed.

When i was partitioning my hard drive i ran out of power (so it closed in the middle of the process). now when i try to partition it says Couldn’t modify partition map because file system verification failed.

You'll have to select the entire external hard drive by the hardware name itself and then apply a new partition table to it under the Partition tab of Disk Utility. Erase and format the drive.
GUID for OS X.

How can i partition my hard drive with lion on it and install snow leopard from time machine

How do I partition my hard drive which has lion on it and reinstall os6 from my time machine?

You going to need a second harddrive. It is riskie to resize your haddrive with live data on it. You need a backup of the data. That said, you might as well copy your data to the second harddrive. Repartition. Then copy the data back. I bought a 128gig flash drive from walmart for $32.
There were repartition commands introduced in 10.4.6 to repartition the harddrive.
For what it is worth, you can non-destructively partition a harddrive from single user mode in 10.4.6 or greater. Of course, you should have a backup of the harddrive.
http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/articles/apple-mac-os-x/nondestructive-partitioning.php

Do I need to partition my hard drive to use Airport to back up my files on my iMac intel?

Airport Utility was pre-installed on my iMac (Intel) and I don't know how to use Time Machine with Airport. I want to backup my hard drive and thought that Time Machine would do this. I receive a message to select a Backup Disc. Do I have to partition my hard drive to have the backup on my iMac? Alternately I could purchase an external hard drive with USB 3.0. Would Time Machine detect the USB external drive so that I could select that as the Backup Disc? Are there any cons for Apple wireless hard drives?

The idea with Time machine is to use it to back up to an external drive. Once connected you would tell Time Machine to use that drive.
However before you do that, connect the external drive and open Disk Utility
1. Click on the external drive
2. Click on the Erase tab and select Mac OS extended, Journaled.
3. Click Apply
When finished it will be formatted correctly and then open Time machine and tell it to use it as the Time machine backup disk.
a handcrafted note by roam

Do I need to partition my hard drive on Mac as I used to on my old PC?

Kindly provide me with your advise. On my old Windows OS pc it was a good practice to partition my hard drive to (e.g. C: and D:) where C: was for system and D: for data (pictures, music, documents etc.). If anything went wrong with the system (virus, any other issue) I simply reinstalled C: from my last restore point done by my back up software (from an external HD) and all was fine. Data on D: were not harmed at all.
DO I NEED TO CARRY THIS PRACTICE OVER TO MAC OR CAN I SIMPLY JUST HAVE ONE DRIVE(NOT SPLIT TO TWO OR MORE)?
PS: I know there are almost no viruses or malware for Mac so no need to point that out. Thank you

Thank you for both of your answers. At the same time I am back to square one
David, yes I do know back up. I have Time Machine running and backing up to my external HD as I type. I am also considering starting to use CCC to create an alternative to TM (as there seems to be a bit of confusion as to how it works, what it keeps and what it eventually dumps. It appears to work in a way where if you want to make sure your data is REALLY backed up you have to have the file on your primary HD at least 8 days so they make it to the weekly back up which stays until your back up drive fills up).
Anyone, any thoughts on the partition on Macs? Go for it or do not worry and keep just one?

How to Backup & Partition Internal Hard Drive

I have a macbook pro 2.4ghz. I need to partition my hard drive to have a separate volume for photoshop scratch disk. How do I actually back up the drive prior to the reformatting? Do I create a bootable clone to restore the main volume.
Specific steps would be very helpful. Thanks

So, using Carbon Copy Cloner I first do a full copy of my internal drive (the one I will partition). This will copy any data files as well, correct? I then format the internal drive, creating the partition I need (making sure one is adequate to hold my back up/full copy). How do I then restore the full copy from the external drive to the internal partition? Does this include the OS or do I need to reinstall that and run for all of the updates, etc?
The basic thing to keep in mind is if you want to clone a complete, bootable copy of your drive, the +target partition+ (regardless of how big whole drive is) has to be at least as large as the items on the partition you are copying. With this mode of copying it is all or none but you need to use it to get the bootable option.
Cloning will copy your data files, OSX, OS9, updates, etc., everything. It makes a _complete, bootable duplicate_ of your internal drive when used in full copy mode. So you need to start off with the external firewire empty, or not care about anything on it because it will all get erased.
First, repair permissions on your internal and make sure it is in a healthy condition. Then use CCC as I instructed in an earlier post and clone your internal to the external. Run Disk Utility and verify the external drive just to make sure there weren't any problems while cloning. Then go into your System Preferences, Startup Drive, select OSX that should now appear on your external, and restart. This does double duty of making sure that your clone really is bootable, and you are now working off your external drive so you can work on your internal drive from the external drive (no need for startup disks). Things should look pretty much identical to how they looked when you were working off your internal except your external drive will probably be positioned in the upper right hand corner instead of your internal.
Oh, if you have like 90 GB of files this can take quite a while.
Once you have established the external drive is working you can start up Disk Utility and partition your internal drive. Unless you need me to I will have breakfast now instead of doing a blow-by-blow account of that. Just keep in mind that if a "get info" of your external drive says you have xx.xx GB of stuff then you need to make sure one of your internal partitions is at least that size. Oh, it is probably a good idea to make the first partition on your internal drive the one to which you will re-clone (if that is a word) your original drive contents; the one with the operating system.
Once you have partitioned, you run CarbonCopyCloner and again use full copy mode to copy the things on your external onto one of the internal partitions. Run verify on the internal partition just to make sure all looks good. Use Startup disk to choose the internal's copy of OSX as startup and reboot.
At this stage you have one bootable internal partition with everything that used to be on that drive, and an external drive that is bootable. I find the latter very handy because Disk Utility requires you be booted from a different drive that that which you are repairing and using startup disks is slow.
You also now have a backup of your internal drive. If you want to, in future you can use CCC in non-full mode to backup your main internal partition. It will just copy off modified files, but you can read the details in the CCC Readme.
Brian

I am running Snow Leopard on my iMac and have partitioned my hard drive to run Windows XP. If I upgrade to Yosemite, will I still be able to run XP?

I am running Snow Leopard on my iMac and have partitioned my hard drive to run Windows XP. If I upgrade to Yosemite, will I still be able to run XP?

bobfromnorth battleford wrote:
...Now what happens if I upgrade to Yosemite on either my iMac or my MBPro?
If I install VM Fusion or Parallels, does Windows run all the time? How does that affect computer performance? and how much do I need to worry about hard drive corruption?
Current versions of Fusion and Parallels are compatible with Yosemite. Both are applications which you only run when you want to run Windows within them. As such, there's no effect on computer performance when they're not in use. Like any other software, there is some additional load on your Mac when both Windows and the Mac OS are running together, but any noticeable effect depends on what each is being expected to do and what resources (e.g. available RAM and the number of CPU cores) you can devote to each.
I think there's less chance of HD corruption with a VM than there is with running Windows natively on the Mac in Boot Camp. Consider that, with a VM, you can create Snapshots of the state of your VM at a given time, and then, if something goes wrong (virus, malware, software installations), you can simply restore the Snapshot in a matter of seconds and eliminate the problems in the process. Moreover you can make a backup copy of the entire VM file, and replace a later version if you wish. Also consider that you can assign, say, 100GB of HD space to the VM, but the actual space devoted to the VM is only what's actually used; as more is needed, more is made available and Windows can't tell the difference. So, for example, my Win 7 Pro VM has an 80 GB virtual HD but only takes up 45 GB on my SSD, and that's with XP Mode in VPC installed inside it.
Microsoft no longer supports XP, though virus signature updates are still being issued. But MS has installed a pop-up message about EOL that won't go away (it's installed with KB2934207). Even if you remove that KB in Add and Remove Software, the pop-up continues. But if you have a Snapshot or a backup which is prior to it's original installation, you can skip installing KB2934207, and suppress it's reappearance on a Software Update list.

Any benefit to partitioning a hard drive

Is there any benefit to partitioning a hard drive on a Mac?
John

A very good reason for partitioning a larger drive into smaller "bites" is the usefulness of Erasing a Volume vs a Drive.
This is particularly helpful if you do video work or other works where contiguous free space is needed (free space with no interruptions).
After adding and deleting lots of files, a little "digital lint" gets left behind even after emptying the trash. With several large partitions (i.e. 5 100MB volumes on a 500GB drive) you can have 4 ongoing projects and still have an empty one. Once you're completely done with a video project on one of the Volumes, you just got to Disk Utility and do an Erase on that Volume. The other volumes remain, but that one is now "brand spankin' new" and clean.
Programs like Final Cut Pro like that. Especially during capture.

I Can't Partition My Hard Drive (Files Can't Be Moved)

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