Some Files Cannot Be Moved

I had to kill my old partition because it was only 32 GB, and now I get the error "Your hard drive cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved." I've defragged my HD, deleted some large files, and done pretty much everything I can think of to get this working. I downloaded Disk Inventory X to see how fragmented my HD is, but it shows a block of empty space (93 GB, though I have 100 free I assume the rest is scattered). I still get this error no matter what I try. Boot Camp suggests that I back up my entire computer to an external HD, then restore it to my internal HD. 1-That is absurdly risky and I don't think it is a good idea, but I would anyway if 2-I HAD AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. Apple sells this software, but when somebody tries to use it they tell them to go out and spend $150 on an external Hard Drive. That is not OK. Does anyone else have any ideas I can try?

Hi Boondocksftfw, (and anyone enquiring about the error "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.")
I've had this same problem on two macs now.
The first time it happened, I solved it somehow but couldn't recall - I think it may have been fluking a partition size that worked.
That didn't happen second time around so I googled and found many forum tips, some that I tried, to no avail.
These included, defragging the harddrive (which took 6 hours for my 250gb HD!), performing maintenance with Onyx, and one that I didn't try but most people attempt - backing up your HD and reinstalling Macosx.
I tried to partition the drive manually with Disk Utility just for one last hurrah and unlike Boot Camp, it gave me more information as to why this couldn't be done - "error 0".
I googled this and found that it meant the HD was having problems and needed to be repaired (I think it is a filemapping error caused by erasing the partition) - I verified this in Disk Utility so then booted off an external HD and successfully repaired the internal HD. Now Boot Camp Assistant works with any given partition size!
Hope this will work for you or any other readers!

Similar Messages

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 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?

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.

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.

"..cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved."

So here's what happened.. I had WinXP SP2 running on a 20GB partition with my leopard on the other. I needed a little more space on my XP partition, so I erased the partition so I could create another.
However, when I try to create a 30GB partition, I get the error message:
"The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved."
I heard the simplest way to fix this is by using iDefrag or some other programs like that. However, is there a FREE way to fix this? I'm not exactly bursting with extra money right now, it would be great to be able to get my XP partition again without having to pay for it >.<
Any suggestions? This is really frusturating! I tried repairing disk permissions and all that jazz, but it's just not working =[

Defragmentation complete
Defragmentation of the disk MacHD has finished.
NOTE: Some files were skipped due to lack of contiguous free space and therefore remain fragmented. Some other files were skipped for a different reason (code 35)-- please contact our support team to find out what that error means.
For some reason the text didn't copy in >.< but yeah, that's what it says on iDefrag after I run it for my MacHD.

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

The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved is the error?? please help

i want to donwload windows and i have a cd for it but the disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved is the error.please help i dont have the cds that came with the imac . can time machine work for this?

You will need to get the original DVD that came with your iMac it you are using Mac OS X 10.6.8 or if you have the Snow Leopard DVD that will work. Follow these instructions,http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2414

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.

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

What are the steps if; the disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved

I'm to install windows XP software, and I can partition the disk. If state, "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files canot be moved." What are the steps to complete partition to install windows XP?

Ok what happens with Bootcamp is it needs to carve out a contiguous free space at the bottom of your hard drive.
If it can't do that then it can't make the partition.
What has happened is there are some files down in closer in the bottom part of the drive, this occurs if you've had a hard drive nearly full, performed a software update, installed programs and then removed some files leaving parts and large empty spaces.
So what to do to fix this?
Well your going to have to learn how to clone your OS X boot partition, with all your programs and files to a external drive, which you can then hold the option key and boot from it.
Then you run Disk Utility from the clone, erase the OS X partition on the internal drive and clone everything right back.
This will place everything in order, move everything up and nice and compact at the top of the drive, which will allow you to make a BootCamp partition as big as you have room for.
It will also make your comptuer perform a bit faster too.
Cloning back and forth is rather safe, because you always have a hold option key bootable clone, either on the internal drive or the external drive, your computer will work from either.
What you don't want to use is Defrag software, that moves things around while the computer is running and messes things up quite a bit and really doesn't optimize as well or as safely as a clone.
In fact I just assisted a person who did just that and royally messed up their machine, requiring a complete rebuild of everything.
So read through this thread of mine and grasp things and you'll be cloning your boot drive in no time.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
Remember that cloning can't clone Filevaulted drives or Bootcamp partitions, also it only (at this time) clones the OS X partition, which for Snow Leopard is the whole drive usually (minus Bootcamp partition.)
However if your on Lion, Carbon Copy Cloner doesn't quite yet clone the hidden Lion Recovery Partition, so when you clone you won't have it on the external drive but the computer will boot off the external drive just fine without it.
So when you go to erase the Lion internal drive, you need to erase only the OS X Lion Partition not the entire drive before reverse cloning.
You should make a Lion Recovery USB if you have Lion, as only through Lion Recvoery can you reinstall Lion now. Instrucitons are in my thread.
The way you can tell if your selecting a partition or a entire drive in Disk Utility is how far left it is.
The far left are devices and the slightly indented items are partitions or media using that device.
Good Luck

The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. idefrag didnt solve the problem. Please help, maybe i did something wrong

My time Machine isnt set up so i cant back up my files.
i read on the apple forms that idefrag works and solves that problem. I payed money, and defraged my computer and i still get that error msg!

zuzugp wrote:
My time Machine isnt set up so i cant back up my files.
Well you need to resolve that backup issue first and combined we will solve your other issue.
Get a new blank external drive either the same size or slightly larger than your boot drive and open Disk Utility in your Applications > Utilities folder.
Select the external drive makers name on the far left and click Erase and Security option > Zero all data on the new external drive, let it complete it will take some time.
If your on 10.7, the Erase function and select the next to the far right option, that's a Zero Erase, the 7x takes too long and isn't necessary as the Zero erase is enough to map off any failing sectors.
Once that is finished, download the free to use (donations) Carbon Copy Cloner and clone the OS X drive (10.7 partition) to the external drive using the default settings, just select drive A and B and click clone. Wait for this also takes some time.
Hold the option key down and select the cloen to boot from, check it out, it's a exact copy. Cool.
i read on the apple forms that idefrag works and solves that problem. I payed money, and defraged my computer and i still get that error msg!
You got burned, because iDefrag doesn't move data in that fashion, it only attempts to defrag files and still leaves data on the area where your trying to create the Bootcamp partition.
Your solution is to option key boot from the clone, Zero erase the OS X partition and reverse clone back onto the drive/partition. Provided you have the drive space avaialble for Bootcamp, then all the free space will be avaialble at the bottom of the drive to create the Bootcamp partition.
see this
BootCamp: "This disc can not be partitioned/impossible to move files."

The disk cannot be partioned because some files cannot be moved

i have about 30gb free and tried giving 10gb to windows, here is what i got
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.
what do i do?

We aren't just talking Apple, but making Windows that normally will only boot from Master Boot Record, boot from GPT/GUID, which is the partition table and what really matters.
You have files scattered around your HFS+ volume, which is where your problem lies. But getting "Windows on Mac" and with an EFI style "BIOS" is where the magic lies.
No disc, you are in a real bind and that is #3 topic. But... I can tell you that Intel Macs really don't like it when apps are imported. Universal or not, your system could run slow, like molasses.
After installing a system, and all the programs, AND all the updates, it is actually a good idea to 'clone' the drive to a new boot drive if possible (old drive now becomes "backup") or the extra step of FORMAT and RESTORE, which optimizes and runs better. SuperDuper is an excellent program.
I'm surprised you aren't using a Mac Pro for FCS and the type of work that would probably entail.
Disk Utility:
There should be the full raw drive name (WDC.... for Western Digital) or SEA... or Hitachi, and then the USER VOLUME partition where OS X resides that is Mac OS Extended (Journal).
When you click on the raw drive, down at the bottom is where you see STATUS and it would show "Partition Table: GUID"
If you try to create Windows partiton in Boot Camp Assistant, it creates a Master Boot Record (part of the GUID / GPT specifications I think even) table entry, to allow Windows to install - otherwise it will complain. It won't install on 2nd internal drive on Mac Pro if it even SEES the OS X GPT drive sitting there, it throws up its hands. Clever what Apple did.
If you create Windows it will be MSDOS (you may want NTFS, I would) and then you will see
DRIVE
Macintosh HD
BOOTCAMP (will be "Untitled" later, can be renamed inside Windows)
If you ever want to FORMAT a drive and insure it is back to "single" volume, then ERASE "DRIVE" and not "Macintosh HD" name.
note: there is a better way which is click on DRIVE and click on PARTITION and make the changes there which cleans things up better. Always more than one way to ah, peel an onion.
There is and will be a learning curve. As with any program - no one wakes up knowing how to best use FCS2, and people rarely know or learn all there is to know about the whole Adobe Suites for design and creation. Or all the commands even in MS Word (which I've used off/on for over 20 yrs, I know, doesn't look or sound like it either).
Back to beginning -
Boot Camp Assistant takes or needs to find a large chunk of free space that is in one contiguous chunk, no fragments, no files scattered around, and no files pinned to the end of the drive.
There are a couple methods to reclaim all that free space. The safest is to always backup first. And the most effective, and often timely, is to then restore that backup. Using SuperDuper.
Some have tried and failed to just throw away a few files.
Some had success with defragging or using/buying "iDefrag" or another program. Again, always best to have a backup. You have your system setup the way you want, and that took days of work you don't want to lose.
Some were able to boot from their OS X OEM DVD and use Disk Utilty REPAIR - I think.
There was one thread a week ago, person said he thought the advise to backup and restore was stupid, but he had a different problem, and just wanted to recover the space that Boot Camp had been using returned to OS X and HFS+.
- you can resize and do other things now with Leopard and Disk Utility, and it is a lot better now than it was a year, or 18 months ago. It could be even better.
If you could see a map of your hard drive and files, it would make more sense and be clearer, if it isn't now.
I never use Master copy of discs, I burn a copy and then use the copy for any work or use and keep the originals filed away. Can even put all the CD/DVDs on a disk drive as images - makes for faster installs, for future if the need arises.

Some Files Cannot Be Moved

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