[Bug 484252] Re: Format action wipes all partitions

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

On 21/05/12 11:46, Evan Dandrea wrote:
> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Steve Langasek
> <steve.langasek at canonical.com> wrote:
>> We don't necessarily need to support installing to a single partition on
>> the disk if that's error-prone in other ways, but we should definitely
>> make it clear that the entire disk will be formatted.
> 
> This is already the case. The button says "Erase Disk" not "Erase
> Partition."
> 
> I'm happy with us being explicit about it to avoid the confusion of
> selecting what looks like a partition and then acting on the entire
> device. I think this would entail throwing up a dialog that said "The
> entire contents of $USB_DEVICE_NAME will be lost. Do you want to
> continue?"
> 
> I do not think just formatting a partition is the right approach for
> the reasons I outlined in my previous comment:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/484252/comments/7
> 
> Adding to that list, usb-creator and other tools write to the MBR,
> which would not be cleared by just wiping the partition and its VBR.
> 

Doesn't the proposed branch still passes the whole device for wiping the
MBR? Let me check again, in case it doesn't. It was the intent to still
wipe the MBR.

On 21/05/12 11:49, Evan Dandrea wrote:
> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Dmitrijs Ledkovs
> <484252 at bugs.launchpad.net> wrote:
>> I wonder why we offer format button at all.
>
> See my earlier comment on this point:
>
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/484252/comments/7
>
>> Possibly we should launch the gnome 'Disk Utility' (can't find command
>> name just now)
>
> Please no. That utility is designed for advanced users who understand
> partitioning and complex disk arrangements. This tool is designed to
> be used by all our users, not just the more technical ones.
>

Ok.

But, although having small windows partitions with drivers and stuff is
still common, the sizes of the usb sticks have greatly increased.

The usb stick I bought last year is 'Cruzer Edge' and it's size is 32GB
from a regular consumer catalogue vendor (Argos). The cheapest/smallest
sticks they offered at the time was 8GB. I have two partitions: one 2GB
in size for live-cd testing, the other is remainging ~28GB NTFS
partition for sharing/moving large files across different operating systems.

So, what I ended up doing now, is opening nautilus and manual select all
files from my 'livecd partition' and delete them. Then re-run
usb-creator to test daily livecd image.

How can we make usb-creator user-friendly, for those people who have
large usb sticks with multiple partitions (1-off setup)?

How can we make it harder to erase intentional multiple partitions?

Option 1: if total size of usb-stick is more than 4GB, and the currently
selected partition is of sufficient total size (e.g. 2GB), then we
should be offer an option to clear the contents of said partition, and
not offer 'Wipe Disk' action.

Option 2: if the selected partition already has a live-cd/usb-creator on
it, offer to 'update it' / override all files on it (apart from
persistent storage?! Maybe not)

-- 
Regards,
Dmitrijs.

-- 
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/484252

Title:
  Format action wipes all partitions

Status in “usb-creator” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  "Erase Disk" action formats *all* partitions, instead of the selected
  partition only.

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