A solution to Boot Camp partition error: “Files cannot be moved”
So I was able to partition a Macbook Pro 2010 (Snow Leopard) using Boot Camp in order to install Windows 7. I just want to point out this possible solution when you get this error when trying to create a partition:
Your Disk Cannot Be Partitioned Because Some Files Cannot Be Moved Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format the disk as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.
Note that I said this is a possible solution. That means that this may not work for you. Most of the solutions I found on the Internet point to using defrag tools like iDefrag. I didn’t want to go that way cause I really don’t have the money to buy those tools.
Here’s what I did to fix this error:
- Clean up the hard drive. Move large files to an external backup disk. There are tools like OmniDiskSweeper to that can help in finding large files.
- Reboot and boot up using your Mac OS X Install DVD. (Press
Cwhen after the startup sound to boot using the DVD) - Choose Utilities > Disk Utility in the menu and Repair the hard drive.
- Restart and try partitioning using Boot Camp again.
I’m not ultimately sure if Step 1 is really required but I don’t have time to test it again.
6 Responses to A solution to Boot Camp partition error: “Files cannot be moved”
Thanks for this – one big gold star!
Thanks! I tried your solution and it didn’t work. I found a more commonsense solution for this Boot Camp partition failure it tries to find those files that can’t be moved ;)
Awesome! It worked for me :))) Thank you!!!
Thanks!!! This works!!!
This works great! Thanks for the great tip. I literally had 2 Macbooks that I was working on trying to install Windows 7 Pro and they both had the exact same error. I did what was mentioned in this article and got both machines up and running, thanks again.
Thanks! It worked for me.