Installation overwrote windows installation too easily

[Bart Silverstrim]

James Takac wrote:
> Hi Ken
> 
> On Monday 08 September 2008 13:36:57 Ken McLennan wrote:
>> G'day there One & All,
>>
>>>     Alas there is no software I am aware of that can tell the difference
>>> between Windows and any other data on a Hard Drive.
>>     It doesn't have to determine any differences, nor to find what OSes
>> are installed anywhere. It needs to halt the process, offer a dialog
>> with an explicit warning to the user about what will happen and giving
>> them an opportunity to back out just in case they DO have windows (or
>> Solaris, or Fedora, or Mandriva, any other OS) installed. It doesn't
>> matter whether they do or not, but should provide the warning for a
>> worst case scenario.
>>
>>     I doubt it would be difficult, just a dialog with a "Cancel &
>> Return" option and a "Go Ahead and Nuke" option.
>>
>> See ya,
>> Ken
> 
> 
> Agreed. What's really needed is a reminder that before anything happens just 
> what is going to happen and the chance to turn back. So if it happens that 
> your choice means you will delete the entire disk and hence lose everything 
> on  it that warning could make all the difference for a newbie. Hell, even 
> someone who knows what they're doing can still stuff up big time and so the 
> warning would be something that might make the difference regardless of 
> newbie or veteran status

I thought it did give these warnings?

Maybe not something as obvious as WARNING YOU WILL LOSE WINDOWS IF YOU 
HAVE IT INSTALLED but I thought there were warnings about losing your data.

And it's good practice no matter what to back up your data if you have 
important information. I can't count how many people I've known over the 
years that hadn't thought of this until their disk went belly up then 
react as if it's a novel idea afterwards. People who should know better 
don't do it enough either.

Why would someone be playing with a new OS without a backup if their 
data were critical to them?

Last, while you might want these warnings in place...most people will 
still ignore them. I get support calls and requests from people all the 
time who had the instructions or information *on the display in front of 
them* and they still didn't know what to do, when the message was 
surprisingly non-cryptic.

People will click through or hit enter on whatever pops up simply 
because they don't want to deal with it and assume the defaults are 
safe. When you're playing with partitions, there is *NO* safe option. 
You have to resign yourself to the idea that you are risking data and 
need a backup.