Installation overwrote windows installation too easily

[Karl Larsen]

Alan E. Davis wrote:
> I would appreciate direction re where to go with my concerns.  Is
> there an appropriate list.  I have harped and complained on this list,
> but it isn't making progress.  I'll try to file a bug report, but
> first, at least I'd like to make a comment.
>
> I ran a workshop, two times this week, for teachers.  Over 15 teachers
> were able to install Hardy Heron, in less than two hours of workshop
> time over two sessions.  Wow.  A testimony to Ubuntu..    Also WUBI
> was the key to success for several people whose laptops had been
> locked down by administrators so they could not set the bios to boot a
> CD.
>
> One user called me after trying to install on his desktop.  He was
> struck by about four power outages during the process, and as it turns
> out, Ubuntu installed all over the entire (SATA) disk.  Only one hdd
> is on his machine.  There is not trace of Windows left on the machine.
>  The experience of many others was that despite their worst fears,
> they were left with the capability of booting either Ubuntu or
> Windows, at boot time, and they were pleased that Windows was still
> the default.
>
> For my friend, however, this wasn't the case.  FIrst of all, he asks,
> is there such a software engineer who can recover the windows data
> after a formatting with ext3?
>
> And second of all, I think I would like to reiterate my comment, some
> months ago, that Ubuntu's installer makes it too easy to overwrite all
> the partitions.  I would suggest (without being a programmer myself)
> that it would be fairly easy to set up the installer with simpler
> messages, and require more verifications before actually doing the
> partitioning---especialy when selecting to use the entire disk.  It
> should, in fact, be almost impossible to overwrite the entire disk
> unless one really tried.  My friend said, after an 85% install, the
> reboot saw the system just install itself.  I'm not sure what he
> meant, but I think the upshot is that while he was given an option at
> one point to install beside windows, the installer finally overwrote
> the disk.
>
> I think a major problem for my friend Will is that he doesn't even
> know what a hard disk or a partition is.  Is it unreasonable to take
> that level of user into consideration when setting up the installer?
>
> By and large, I was more than happy with the result, that only a
> couple of people (besides Will) had problems of a nature that made it
> impossible to install.  In fact, one fellow was trying to copy the CD
> iso image from a flash drive onto his hard drive to burn it, and ended
> up installing it directly from the iso image!  We had no network on
> the site, but I have gotten feedback from a few that they have been
> able to get on line ok.
>
> This Ubuntu GNU/Linux is a major accomplishment.  Kudos to the
> developers who made this all happen!
>
> Alan
>
>   
    Alan there is nothing to write a bug about. Yes if your not careful 
you can ruin your laptop Windows. But a large number got it done right 
and were happy to dual boot with Windows.

    If you have software that can make a new partition on a hard drive, 
it can ruin your entire hard drive. The problem is Windows. If you load 
Windows on a large hard drive it will make one large partition using the 
entire hard drive. Then if you want to load something else you must take 
it from Windows which throws files all over the hard drive. Your going 
to get something ruined if you take some space but maybe not too much. 
It helps to Defrag just prior to loading Ubuntu. I hope they did that.

Karl




-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
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