Help me install Windows via bootcamp

Question

Help me install Windows via bootcamp

Hello all!

I have run into the typical Bootcam problems on my macbook pro when trying to install W7.

Symptoms:

1)Bootcamp can't install the updates for my mac. Okay, whatever, can be bypassed.

Chose "I have the updates" and tried to partition my drive.

During the process, I get a:

2)"some files could not be moved" message.

Now, I know there are solutions for this, like:

1)checkdisk and repair utility - didn't work.

1a)try to format to a small partition - selected the minimum possible, it didn't work.

2)Third party partition software - No, sorry. Don't want to pay to fix a feature that should be working anyway.

3)Reinstall Macosx - won't do it. Too much time and hassle. Just no.

4)Look for the messages that bootcamp generates in the "messages.app" and remove the problematic files. This looks like the best shot, but the strange thing is that Bootcamp doesn't generate error messages that would help me identify the files that can't be moved.

5)Delete parallels and all associated files - done, didn't help.

Any ideas on how to fix this problem?

Machine: macbook pro 2009 (non unibody), OSX 10.6.8, 4 gigs of ram.

Posted on May 5, 2012 1:29 AM

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Answer 1

May 5, 2012 12:21 PM in response to Community User

Anyone?

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Answer 2

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,822 points

May 5, 2012 2:16 PM in response to Community User

This sounds like the main problem:

2)"some files could not be moved" message.

The drive is too full to make room for the Windows partition. Or, there is enough room, but a locked file is sitting in the area of the drive where the Win partition would be and can't be moved.

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Answer 3

May 5, 2012 3:14 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Thanks for the reply. I have figured that as being the problem, too. It's not the lack of space, I have 80gigs free.

The issue is that the proposed solutions are

a)either too time consuming or cost money, like reinstalling macosx or using ipartition.

b)don't work at all, like the solution where the messages.app is supposed to record which file is actually causing the problem.

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Answer 4

May 5, 2012 3:34 PM in response to Community User

You should go to the boot camp forum where the boot camp gurus hang out https://discussions.apple.com/community/windows_software/boot_camp

And, your issue has been addressed hundreds of times there. Just do a search when you get to the boot camp forum. Sorry you think the fix is too time consuming. The issue is not that you don't have enough space, it is that you don't have enough contiguous free space.

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Answer 5

May 6, 2012 1:27 AM in response to BobTheFisherman

Thank you for the hint, and sorry for misplacing this thread.

But I can't agree with your conclusion. I have 80 gigs free, I am creating a 20gig partition. Now I understand that macosx needs to move enough files around to create an empty 20gig space.

And it's failing at that.

That's the problem, not the fact that I don't have contiguous free space. OSX can't create that space ;-)

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Answer 6

May 6, 2012 7:43 AM in response to Community User

Aahzmandeus wrote:

Thank you for the hint, and sorry for misplacing this thread.

But I can't agree with your conclusion. I have 80 gigs free, I am creating a 20gig partition. Now I understand that macosx needs to move enough files around to create an empty 20gig space.

And it's failing at that.

That's the problem, not the fact that I don't have contiguous free space. OSX can't create that space ;-)

OK. Read the hundreds of similar posts in the Boot Camp forum.

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Answer 7

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,822 points

May 6, 2012 10:45 AM in response to Community User

And it's failing at that.

Since you have enough room, the only reason something like that should fail would be a locked file or folder sitting in the area it wants to allocate to the Windows partition.

If you have an external drive, you can use SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate your drive to an empty drive/partition on the external. Make sure it's empty, as either will erase what's already there to make the target drive an exact duplicate of the source drive.

Then boot to the cloned external drive, erase the main drive and clone it back. Everything will then be contiguous and you should have no problem creating a Windows partition with Boot Camp.

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