Boot Camp won't partition, files cannot be moved.

I'm sure this has come up more times than anyone can count. I've searched for answers but still haven't found the solution. Boot Camp won't partition because some files cannot be moved.
I have defragmented my computer, it is all just one partition. I have 150+ GB of free space. I am only trying to partition 5 GB for windows, honestly that is more than i will need. The error of course tells me to back up my computer and reformat it. I have not done this yet because I believe it will be a last resort and will be unlikely to actually solve my problem. I'm sure there is at least 5 GB of continuous free space on my computer that could be partitioned. I am wondering what else i can do?
Also, if it does come down to backing my computer up, is it possible to back it up to another macbook? I don't want to waste money on an external just because Boot Camp is being picky.

First, way too many people choose too small, and I though 10GB was the smallest for XP, and often was not enough to allow updates, patches, page, hibernation and temp space, let alone games, apps etc.
The only defrag I can think of that works are iDefrag and Drive Genius 2. But a backup + erase + restore is the best. Otherwise, your free space may still be fragmented or have files that prevent you, as is happening.
5GB for Windows doesn't sound like more than needed, or even enough.
External backup drives are never a waste. Even for just Mac OS.

Similar Messages

Boot Camp won't partition my disc because it says I need to reformat as a single mac os extended (journaled) even though it already is.

I'm trying to partition my Macbook Pro early 2011 with Boot Camp Assistant so I can run Windows 7, however when I tell it to create the partition I get an error that 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."
Problem is, my Macbook is already a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled)! Any idea of what I should do to get around this? Do I have to wipe and restore my files? I'm using Boot Camp 4.0.1

Kappy wrote:
The problem:
You are asking for more contiguous space than is available on the drive.
The drive is highly fragmented.
Here's what you need to do:
Request a smaller Windows partition. If that isn't feasible then do the following:
Cheap and Easy Defragmentation
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
1. Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the
       external one.
2. Boot from the external hard drive.
3. Erase the internal hard drive.
4. Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
       it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the upward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the
       mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the
       drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is
       failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be
       reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the
       DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the
       drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended
       (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to
       GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait
       until the process has completed.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
       it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.
I've come across this problem myself, so I attempted this procedure, although I receive an input/output error when trying restore my internal hdd to my external. I have never a problem with either. Could I instead create an image using DU and save it to the external drive then extract that image to my internal drive later? If so, is there any additional steps I need to take?

Boot Camp won't let me partition because files cannot be moved

Hello, i just purchased Leopard so i could use windows (again) on my mac... after uninstalling it a long time ago back when i had Tiger and bootcamp beta.
anyway, the problem i'm having is the same as a few people: it won't let me partition my disk because some files cannot be moved, and that i need to format the disk to a single partition - Mac OSX (Journaled), even though it already IS.
most suggestions have been to erase and restore, or back up your computer on time machine... but the problem with that is i have a large amount of space being used on my external (for photos, movies, music), which would not otherwise fit on my HD, and as a result there is not enough room on my external to back up with Time Machine.
so what can i do to get Boot Camp Assistant to partition my disk so that i can install windows?

thanks for the advice - i finally managed to get it to work!
after a bunch of research i found out that it is in fact because the disk is fragmented that bootcamp assistant is unable to partition the disk (despite the many false claims that OSX does not need to be defragmented).
i didn't feel like paying for iDefrag and waiting to get it in the mail, so i downloaded the iDefrag demo and was able to see exactly where the fragments were (many of them were surprisingly mp3 files), and then i could manually delete their corresponding files to free up continuous space. (where before i couldn't even make a 5GB partition, i was able to finally make a 15GB partition after deleting about a dozen music files)
for anyone who wishes to try this, the way it works is that in order for the partition to be created, it requires a certain amount of free, CONTINUOUS space. Your computer says there is a certain amount of free space on it, but not all of it is continuous, in other words there are bits and pieces of stuff (fragments) littered throughout areas of "free" space.
When you run the iDefrag demo, there is a bar at the bottom with lots of colors which represents all the stuff on your HD. The free space refers to any area of white, and fragmented files are in red. The info bar will tell you exactly what file is being represented by the area of color when you click on it.
The idea is to find large areas of free space (white). If there are a few bands of non-red color in those areas it's OK, but you want to locate all the fragmented files (red) in those areas, find out what they are, search them in the finder and delete them (the info bar will tell you the file name, which will very likely be an mp3, as well as it's exact location on your computer). But be careful because if you don't know what you're deleting, you may screw up your computer.
If you buy iDefrag ($35.00), you can simply defragment and optimize your computer. This will take a long time (~5 hours), but you dont have to do any manual labor, and in the end your computer will be beautifully defragmented: all the free space will be clumped together in one big section of your hard drive and it will be completely continuous, so you can make a much larger partition (depending how much free space you have to begin with).

The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved (BOOT CAMP)

"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 came across this message a few hours ago and did a quick but thorough research on the topic. It seeeds that the only solutions available were:
-To move large files onto an external drive
-Defragment the hard drive
-Reinstall Mac OS X
I was not willing to do any of the latter two, being time consuming and somewhat hard to do. But then, I came across this post on macworld:
"...thanks to a tip elsewhere, I booted off my Snow Leopard install disk (hold the C key as you boot until the language selection screen appears.) From the Utilities menu on the install screen choose Disk Utility, then Repair Disk"
This appears to be the easiest, less time consuming solution to this popular problem.
(from http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=72767)

For some it works,and always worth a try.
Of course the instructions are to backup your system first which some fail to do.
And repairing should just be normal thing, done regularly, though I prefer to boot from my bootable backup (clone) instead of a DVD.
sometimes even SuperDuper erase and restore works, but in 5% of cases even that doesn't (or the user did something we can't see and didn't occur to them).
If the DVD works, then something was likely wrong to begin with is my own feeling, plus the fsck command should be easier and do the same.
Lion has a hidden feature to check the health of all partitions, all, from the Recovery mode partition.

Boot camp "the disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved." what to do?

I am attempting to reinstall windows on my MacBook via bootcamp. I have done this before but at the advice of the genius bar today, uninstalled it due to some problems. Now I am reinstalling but after being told the partition size was too small, after making it larger, I am now getting a message that says "the disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved". I don't know how to get past this. Any advice? What is the proper partition size for windows? Thanks in advance.

Hi,
In essence the BootCamp Assistant cannot find a free contingeous diskspace of the size you want to use for WIndows partition/installation and thus fails.
The easiest approach is to clone your OSX to an external harddisk, reformat your internal harddisk and then restore your OSX from the external HD to the internal one.
This 'defrags' the OSX volume so that the BC Assistant can find the diskspace he needs.
SuperDuper and/or Carbon Copy Cloner can do this quite 'painless'.
A Time Machine backup also works.
There are also some commercial solutions for defragging like iDefrag and Drive Genius.
For Windows XP the partition size should be at least 10GB plus the diskspace needed for the Windows programs and files you work with.
Regards
Stefan

Boot Camp Won't Let Me Partition

I have been trying to set up a Windows XP partition on my Macbook just to play some games, but Boot Camp won't let me partition my hard drive, saying that some files are unmovable and that I should reformat my entire hard drive. Any ideas how to get around this without losing all of my work?

None that I know of. If you have access to an external hard drive, go ahead with the backup. This way, you have a fallback no matter what happens.
In theory, when a backup is restored, files are laid down in a manner that minimizes fragmentation; so if successful in backing up, reinitializing and restoring the hard disk, you should be able to create the Boot Camp volume.
You could also experiment with creating a smaller Boot Camp volume. What the Assistant is looking for is an unbroken string of free space blocks--something between 5 GB and whatever your chosen partition size might be. Strange as it might sound, depending on your habits as a user, you might not have that unbroken string even when you have something like 100 GB free.
Hopefully, I've pointed you in a good direction here, though you may disagree with the solutions offered. They are simply the only known methods for dealing with this issue.
Nate

Boot Camp won't let me remove my windows partition, please help

I am trying to remove my windows partition and boot camp won't let me. It gives me a message +" The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows."+ Please help!!!!!

Use the Disk Utility to delete it and resize the partition immediately above of it so it takes up the released space.
(51550)

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.
Once that is done you will use Carbon Copy Cloner (from the clone) to restore the external to the internal.

Bootcamp - the disk cannot be partition because some files cannot be moved

Hi, I have been using boot camp for a while and everything was working fine but over time, windows were picking up some virus so I did a stupid thing of removing the whole partition thinking that I can re-partition again and install a clean windows system.
But to my horror, I got an error message saying "the disk cannot be partition because some files cannot be moved". So I decided to defrag my MBP, after almost 14 hours later the MPB is defrag but I am still getting the same error.
Looking around, I found this quote "On a side note, it actually doesn't have anything to do with fragmentation. It has to do with compacting the disk so that no files are on the outer sectors of the drive. You could have a 100% no fragmented file system but still have gaps between data and data on the outer sectors of the disk. They need to be moved to the inside of the disk. Boot camp will usually do this for you but the problem is if a system file, swap or something can't can't be moved while the OS is running is out there it can't be moved.. thus the error."
Bottom line is what can I do to install bootcamp again? will wiping OSX and reinstall from Time Machine solve this problem? I don't want to waste another day wiping everything when it's not going to work.
Thanks in advance for any help!

Just a quick update, I made sure I had the latest backup on my Time Machine and then I wipe my MBP and restore from Time Machine. The restore was completed however, when I try to boot up from my MBP, it wouldn't start.
I get to the Apple logo screen with the loading icon under that and it stays there forever. The only thing I can do is a hard shut down (press the power button for 10 seconds).
This is turning into a bit of a nightmare!

"Disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved" NO RECOVERY PARTITION

After defragmenting my disk the old-fashioned way, I lost my recovery HD partition. I am currently working to get it back.
That was in an attempt to create contiguous space for Boot Camp Assistant. While that error is now solved, a new one has popped up: it says some files cannot be moved.
I am hesitant to repartition the entire drive again. Is this the only thing to do at this point?
I tried running FSCK from single user mode. It didn't help. I can run disk utility from an external backup drive, but isn't that the same as FSCK? I'm honestly not sure so please answer if you know!
(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

You just run Boot Camp Assistant and that downloads drivers.
Using Disk Utility does not setup the Master Boot Record for native dual boot.
BCA or CampTune does.
If you had 10.6.x DVD that has Apple drivers (wish they would just NOT call them also "boot camp" it confuses people).
Print and read the pdf, the FAQ, the install guide.
Draw inside the lines.
Boot from Windows 7 to format.
But yes a lot of people can avoid and still use most non-gaming, non-3D or hardware gobbling resource intensive apps with a VM.

I'm getting the infamous 'Files Cannot be Moved" error when partitioning

I'm on my Intel iMac, and currently have 186.55 GB of free space on my hard drive. I wanted to make a 32 GB partition for Windows Vista, but I keep getting the error message telling me back up my info and format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (which it already is). I did have VMware Fusion installed, but I deleted it after I found out that it can cause this problem.
At one point, I was actually successful at creating a 15 GB partition, but upon trying to install windows, it told me I needed to have at least 21 GB free for some reason. So I deleted that partition and tried to create a new 32 GB partition. But once again I got the same message from Boot Camp telling me that "Some files couldn't be moved".
I'd rather not have to defrag my HD (unless you can point me towards some defraging software for Mac), and I've tried deleted plenty of huge files that were several gigs in size.
I'm at a loss here, so are there any other solutions out there?
Message was edited by: Tanner Stevens

Not a computer expert, but in recently installing Leopard and then boot camp, I've experienced a lot of the common issues discussed on this forum (mail issues for leopard and "files cannot be moved" with boot camp). I followed the idefrag path (paid the $30), created the bootable dvd, ran it (took less than two hours), freed up only a GB or two, but I was able to then partition my drive (15GB for Windows) without an issue and installed windows xp pro without a single issue. It took a bit of time, but I would say it beats reformatting your HD. Whether or not you "should" have to defrag a mac, the reality is that boot camp wouldn't work before I defragged, but worked smoothly afterwards. Definitely worth giving it a shot.

Error: This disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.

So I'm trying to partition and install windwos with bootcamp, but all I got is this error while partitioning that:
"The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. Back up disk 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."
Um, what am I supposed to do?
(I heard that i need a defrag,but.. not really? I'm so confused @_@)

I never used iDefrag myself but you are correct, sems like the website if off-line.
I used the Cloning approach that I described in the other thread:
If you have an external HD you might use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner for cloning your OSX to the external HD; check to see if the external OSX boots; erase your internal OSX; restore OSX from your external HD to your internal HD.
During the clone/restore process the fragmentation that now hinders the partitioning with BootCamp is gone.
Carbon Copy Cloner has an excellent documentation.
For safety you shouldn't use your current Time Machine external harddisk but rather a second one.
And you should try to get your Time Machine running correctly.
Pondini's Time Machine FAQs and Troubleshoot http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html is a good starting point.
Stefan

Hard disc wont partition to load bootcamp It says that the disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved

Using Bootcamp Assistant I cant partition my harddrive - get message "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved" The following instructions have been followed with no result "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." This is a bit sketchy for someone like me. Do I back up the whole system ie the OS as well or just my data? Can anyone help please?

First take a look at this docuemnt, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2414. When you backup your hard drive it is best to back up all files and the OS, a better option would be to clone the hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner.

Disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved

my boot camp assistant 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."
can anyone help me figure out what that means?

Hi,
have a look at this thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10540273&#10540273 for solutions.
Regards
Stefan

Bootcamp - The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.

I know what you're thinking; this question has been posed before. But my circumstances are different.
Sooo I bought a brand new Macbook Pro 15" Retina, late-2014 model on Monday. After some initial setup (moving my music, downloading programs etc.) I moved onto the last thing I needed to do - set up bootcamp (primarily for gaming I admit).
Specs: 2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.0GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
1TB PCIe-based Flash Storage - In total the files I moved onto it left me with about 890GB free on the HD.
At this point I had made sure everything was updated as far as I was aware.
I received the error message "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved." I was trying to make a 151GB partition but also tried going down to 40GB and received the same message. I tried several solutions I found online including booting in cmd+s and typing in some codes, I checked the disk with disk utility and it was fine.
Nothing much for it and I was feeling lazy, I backed up with Carbon Copy Cloner (I much prefer this program to time machine) and reformatted. Clean install of OSX Yosemite and the Macbook looked like it had just come out of the box. Before I even attempted to restore using CCC I started up bootcamp again: same error. With essentially a brand new Macbook Pro right out of the box, near to 1TB HD space free.
I've taken it to the local Apple store but they "Don't have any support for bootcamp in-store" and I'm out of the house for 12 hours a day with work (I'm actually at work now). Plus you know, I require food and such, so I don't get much time to get in touch with Apple support directly.
The guy at the Apple store recommended Parallels or Visualbox; note that I want to use bootcamp. I like the extra power and I have a copy of Windows 8.1 from a previous Macbook Pro that worked wonderfully through bootcamp. This should work as far as I am concerned and I don't want to accept anything less to be honest.
Any ideas?

Hi Loner T,
Thanks for your suggestion, however I did a step wrong and I am facing another bigger problem.
Step 1 was to use time machine to backup OSX, looks like I failed to do that, and only backed up the data instead. Because after I erase my internal disk, I cant restore from TM.
So now the situation is that I can't access my HD, can't reinstall Mac to that hard disk (it is not detected), Cant use DU to repartition the hard disk as well, option not selectable.
What can I do now?

Boot Camp won't partition, files cannot be moved.

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