Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 37713
Installer does not indicate which partition it will install on
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:32:51 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.7C-SGI [en] (X11; I; IRIX 6.5 IP32) I run a lab of a dozen Win2K PCs with a central server running RedHat Linux and Samba. We would like to convert the PCs into dual-boot systems with both Win2K and Linux. So I picked a test machine and started. First step: repartition hard disk by shrinking the W2K partition and adding two new primary partitions for Linux swap and an ext2 for the OS itself. Second step: boot off RH7 floppy with CD and run the graphical installer. After the usual questions about configuration, the installer warned me "This will destroy all data on the partition. Continue?" It did not say *which* partition. Being an optimist I decided it had found the Linux partition and told it to go ahead. Bzzt! Wrong! Three hours reinstalling W2K from various CDs. I am *not* asking for a whole series of "are you really sure about this?" type dialogs. I am *not* complaining that it can't be done - I've since found that the text installer works just fine. All that needs to be added is some indication of the number of partitions on the disk and which will be affected. (Even better, the graphical installer should let you select.) The installer can destroy megabytes of data irretrievably. Any such program absolutely, positively, must be clear and explicit about exactly what it is doing. It's even more important when the program in question is the first experience a new RedHat customer has. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Partition a Windows disk using PartitionMagic, preserving Windows as first primary 2. Run RedHat installer 3.
The behavior is different in Red Hat Linux 7.1. We had some complaints about the exact same issue you are referring to, so we changed the behavior. Selecting automatic partitioning no longer overwrites any DOS filesystems. Thanks for your report.