When doing a hard disk install (text), I chose "custom" and a screen comes up that was slightly confusing to me, until I read it several times to ensure I was doing the right thing - as the consequences would have been destructive if I'd chosen the wrong action. The screen in question is the one that asks you wether or not you want to "continue" or to "partition". The default action is to "continue" which has the effect of destroying all data on the disk and I suppose autopartitioning. I do not know the result of hitting continue since I did not want to lose data. Choosing "partition" allowed me to do what I wanted, however I could very well have quickly just hit enter "assuming" the default value to be safe. An ordinary user is likely to just hit "enter" without fully reading the screen. Standard GUI design says that the "default" action of any buttons on a dialog box should default to the safest non-destructive answer. I think 2 things should be done to correct this, one the default should be changed to "partition", and 2, the message should be updated to be as clear as possible to the dumbest person, and yet short and sweet. I haven't tried, but likely the GUI install is similar.
I notice the same thing on my IDE EXPERT install. The attached SCSI drive with valuable data was going to be reformatted unless I toggled it off. It also is a scroll window and additional drives may be off the visable list. [*] /dev/hda5 [*] /dev/sda1
Cannot change screen shots at this time, will defer for future consideration.
Should be more clear now.