In a hard-disk install in text mode, if the partition or directory are incorrectly specified, and the installer fails to find the ISO images in there, it goes back to the `Select Partition' screen, but the device selection is reset to the first partition. It would be better to have the previously-specified partition selected.
Too late for Florence. I don't think this issue is major enough to warrant changing.
Should fix in future release.
I've taken a look at this, and I think the problem may lie with Newt instead. There's nothing in the loader that explicitly resets the choice in the partition list to the first item. The entry box that contains the directory that the images are in does not get reset. It's not worth changing Newt just for this.