How my friends formatted their hdd installing ubuntu

[digitally]

I gave 2 friends Ubuntu CDs to try out on different occasions.

After few days they told me they had their entire disk wiped out by Ubuntu (one of them had 300 gb of data that he lost).

There should be some sort of warning or default option in the partitioning screen should be changed.

Non-techie people just click next, without understanding the word partitioning, etc.

[oilchangeguy]

I gave 2 friends Ubuntu CDs to try out on different occasions.

After few days they told me they had their entire disk wiped out by Ubuntu (one of them had 300 gb of data that he lost).

There should be some sort of warning or default option in the partitioning screen should be changed.

Non-techie people just click next, without understanding the word partitioning, etc.

as i recall there is a warning. something along the lines of, if you continue all data will be lost. there's at least two pages to go thru before any formatting is done. it's up to the people using the cd's to pay attention to what they are doing. even if they are "non-techie" they can still read. and it goes without saying that before attempting to install another operating system, that any data that you want to keep should be backed up. problems can and do occur.

[Mark Phelps]

As oilchangeguy indicated, there IS a warning.

However, you need to realize that the Gnu/Linux community has grown up around techie folks, and only recently, has made major efforts to appeal to the non-techie crowd. Some would even argue that this is going in the wrong direction because they don't want Gnu/Linux to be a "computing for dummies" solution.

My own personal feeling is that folks who won't take the time to read warning messages have no business installing operating systems. I have no sympathy for people who "just click Next" and are too lazy or stupid to read.

While I agree that the warning could be done in stronger terms (Perhaps something like BIG LETTERS that say "*** WARNING *** Continuing with this selection will reformat your entire disk") the last thing we want is to end up with the UAC disaster of Vista where you are asked again, and again, and again, whether or not you want to do something.

[2hot6ft2]

I gave 2 friends Ubuntu CDs to try out on different occasions.

After few days they told me they had their entire disk wiped out by Ubuntu (one of them had 300 gb of data that he lost).

There should be some sort of warning or default option in the partitioning screen should be changed.

Non-techie people just click next, without understanding the word partitioning, etc.
Maybe YOU should have wrote in big red letters on the dics a warning or simply not given it to them if they don't know how to read. Like has already been said. THERE IS A WARNING.

[sonu 1807]

I have installed Ubuntu on several computers myself and it does warn before formatting begins.It also gives the option of retrieving data from other OS under manual partition.But if someone still messes it up then ubuntu can't be blamed for that

[Sohlman]

When I installed i got a warning, then i changed the options to keep my XP partision.
But the i got an Error and it deleted all...