[Bug 1414201] [NEW] installer has a misleading option which formats entire hdd

[varad kulkarni]

Public bug reported:

I had 13.04 desktop and wanted to upgrade to Studio 14.04.1. I booted
using the live USB. The installer detected 13.04 and provided the option
to "Erase 13.04 and install". This led me to believe that my Windows 8.1
and two more NTFS partitions will remain untouched and ONLY 13.04 will
be erased. However, the installer failed saying "couldn't install grub
on /target" and then a bug report window popped up which wouldn't close.

When I rebooted, the BIOS couldn't detect any bootable device. I booted
using the live usb again only to find out that the entire HDD was
formatted by the installer. All my 1TB worth of data is lost.

This is a Samsung laptop with UEFI boot. Now I can only boot with the
live USB since the installer fails to write any MBR. The installer wiped
out my recovery parition as well - I can't recover my Windows 8.1
installation.

Why doesn't the installer specifically confirm whether it should wipe my
other partitions? Why isn't there an option to backup the current
partition table so that the recovery tools can attempt to recover the
data?

Now I won't trust any installer to be "intelligent" enough to carry out
the installation automatically.

** Affects: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1414201

Title:
  installer has a misleading option which formats entire hdd

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I had 13.04 desktop and wanted to upgrade to Studio 14.04.1. I booted
  using the live USB. The installer detected 13.04 and provided the
  option to "Erase 13.04 and install". This led me to believe that my
  Windows 8.1 and two more NTFS partitions will remain untouched and
  ONLY 13.04 will be erased. However, the installer failed saying
  "couldn't install grub on /target" and then a bug report window popped
  up which wouldn't close.

  When I rebooted, the BIOS couldn't detect any bootable device. I
  booted using the live usb again only to find out that the entire HDD
  was formatted by the installer. All my 1TB worth of data is lost.

  This is a Samsung laptop with UEFI boot. Now I can only boot with the
  live USB since the installer fails to write any MBR. The installer
  wiped out my recovery parition as well - I can't recover my Windows
  8.1 installation.

  Why doesn't the installer specifically confirm whether it should wipe
  my other partitions? Why isn't there an option to backup the current
  partition table so that the recovery tools can attempt to recover the
  data?

  Now I won't trust any installer to be "intelligent" enough to carry
  out the installation automatically.

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