Ubuntu

vista, windows xp, mac os x, boot and hard drive erased warning

Asked by summercool

After installing Ubuntu, it seemed that everything on my Drive C: was lost.

After hours of trying, it really turned out I lost EVERYTHING on my C: drive.

So I had to reformat the whole C: drive, and reinstall Vista on it.

I lost all my bookmarks, in both IE and Firefox.

I needed to reinstall every single application.

I needed to reinstall all security update for Vista all over again.

I wasted at least 5, 6 hours.

How can "Ubuntu - Humanity towards others" erases people's whole hard drive without a single warning?

Think about it, some people may lose tens or hundreds of hours of work, or 4, 5 years of photos and memories, just because Ubuntu erases whole hard drive without warning.

The following is the install option snapshot: IT NEVER warns you the content in drive C: will be totally erased. What's more, it is set as the DEFAULT ACTION. And it says it is "GUIDED":

  http://aycu03.webshots.com/image/32522/2001738602340396146_rs.jpg

I see that intermixed at the last install info page, it is said that some partition on your hard drive will get erased. But how do I know it isn't some partition that Ubuntu will create for me? Why not just say "it means your whole hard drive's content will be erased" -- best right after people click the "partition for whole drive" option.

When it asked "How would you like to partition your hard drive", choosing "Use entire drive" seems like "Yes, I want to partition my entire C: drive and just make it dual boot with whatever OS that is already there". And turned out actually it means, "use my whole C drive and erase everything in it."

Humanity towards others -- yes, when you make the software, think about it can be you, your children in the future, or someone not as skilled as you who will be using it. People don't have time to read thousands of words of warning and note for the installation. Just spend a little time to warn time before doing something as destructive as erasing the whole hard drive.

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Jorge Juan (jjchico) said : 		#1

Can you explain how does it help to ask the same think more than once?

Are you related to questions:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/15198
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/15144
?
they seem to be the same machine.

Is the screenshot from the first original installation or from an installation after Vista is gone? In the first case, a sliding bar should appear to select how much space you want to give to Ubuntu without deleting Vista.

If resizing the Vista partition is not given as an option, you should file a bug. You can try to reproduce it by installing a new Vista in the whole disk and running the Ubuntu installer again.

The information at install time can be improved for sure, but losing your data is completely your fault. If you do not understand the inherent risks involving repartitioning and/or installing two operating systems side by side, you should never try it, or do it at your own risk. Backing up your data is a must if you really want to keep it, specially if you are trying beta software.

Having years of work or photos, etc. in a single drive is a crazy idea in any case. A hard drive can fail in a second without notice. You really understand it first time it happens. I would recommend using rdist-backup to have a copy of valuable data on a different drive installed in a different computer, probably in a different building. An old computer with a $70 300GB new drive can serve well.

Good luck.

Revision history for this message
Oscar (osh-nbit) said : 		#2

I do however think he has a point though.
If it's about to reinitialize the whole disk, let's make sure that the user understands what's happening.
A big sign saying "ALL DATA ON THIS DISK/PARTITION _WILL_ BE LOST" tends to make people think one more time about what they're doing.

Revision history for this message
summercool (summercoolness) said : 		#3

Right, there was no slide bar. Never saw one.

Yes, I do think that when the whole drive is about to be erased, giving a warning is a good idea.

"Since you chose the whole drive as the option, the whole content of the hard drive WILL BE DELETE. If there was an original Operating system such as Windows or Mac OS X on the drive, it will be deleted as well".

Revision history for this message
Jorge Juan (jjchico) said : 		#4

That's right, the installer should be improved. If there was no slide bar you should file a bug on that and ask for additional warnings. My point was simply that you can blame Ubuntu for deleting your hard drive, but not for losing your data. Your data (and its backup policy) is completely your responsability.

I think this closes the question. Further discussion will be more practical in the presence of a bug report.

Revision history for this message
jfriswel (jfriswel) said : 		#5

I totally agree with the original comment. I installed Ubuntu last night and have also suffered a catastrophic loss. There was no warning that the hard drive would be formatted and of course when it was I couldn't even use the recovery option on the IBM because that hidden partition was deleted as well. What a mess.

Revision history for this message
erika luukas (erikaluukas) said : 		#6

Unfortunately this 'bug' has still not been properly fixed as I fear I have been stupid and installed with that same 2nd option of erasing and using whole drive - with the seeingly incorrect understanding that it would simoly overwrite Vista and not absolutely everything on the C:drive.

Does this truly mean that everything has been deleted or are there any data-recovery options still available?

I chose this OS to replace Vista as I was totally fed up with MS.
I chose this OS to see if my files were still there after a serious Vista issue - they were and with the 'test' from cd I could access them all.
Then, excited that I'd found a new and better OS, I intalled & didn't pick 'side by side' as I soooo wanted rid of Vista.

Possibly stupid but it was certainly not clear that all personal data would be deleted - although I can see both arguments above, has anyone actually got a fix or do I truly need to swallow my stupidity and appreciate that it's a very hard pill to swallow?

cheers
e

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