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Idea #29984: Warn users about external drives that are mounted before installing Ubuntu

bug This idea was marked as being in development the 10 January 13.
Written by ade234uk the 24 Jul 12 at 17:30. Related project: Live CD installer. Status: In development
Rationale
I have on a few occasions left my external drive plugged in before installing Ubuntu.

Someone installing Ubuntu for the first time might accidently select the wrong drive and wipe their precious data as they don't understand how drives are named in Linux.



Developer comments
Dmitrijs Ledkovs, one of the current Ubiquity maintainers, responded to this brainstorm idea as part of the "most popular ideas" review:

Indeed, having less hard-drives attached during installations (ideally only 1) makes the installation process easier and more robust. On the other hand, we still want to continue supporting multiple target devices. During 12.10, improvements were made in detecting external USB drives in the installer. Unfortunately, that also reviled that some USB sticks & drives mis-report themselves as other connection types (e.g. SCSI). This makes Solution #2/#3 very hard. We no longer have migration assistant in the installer, thus there is no benefit in having unnecessary devices plugged in.

I like "Solution #1: Display awarning message". It can be shown in a non-intrusive way, as needed
(when extra drives are plugged in), at the prepare step or maybe at some other screen.

For this purpose I have filed https://launchpad.net/bugs/1094557 to track design and implementation.

52
votes
inprogress
Selected solution (#1): Display a warning message
Written by ade234uk the 24 Jul 12 at 17:30.
Before installing Ubuntu a message could be displayed warning users to unmount, unplug external drives before installing Ubuntu.
11
votes
inprogress
Selected solution (#2): Extra function to the original idea
Written by eddiecsilva the 8 Aug 12 at 17:35.
Besides the warning message informing the external drive connected, the HAL resources could be used to graphically display how the disks are connected to the computer.

For example:
- External HD's would appear in a tree identified as USB (or others) and internal disks in a separate tree identified according to the type of connection used (SATA, IDE, SCSI, etc.).
12
votes
inprogress
Selected solution (#3): Extension of Idea 2
Written by rarkenin the 11 Aug 12 at 01:10.
In addition to having a physical, user-readable map(Showing icons for devices), it should be set up so that one may choose disks directly from this menu, instead of making a user remember the device location.

Reasoning: This will keep users from having to remember a device identifier, which will decrease risks even further, as will be impossible to get it confused.

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Comments
PaddyLandau wrote on the 26 Jul 12 at 16:19
Good idea.

It must be a warning, though, and not an error, because sometimes the user specifically does want to install onto the external drive.

eddiecsilva wrote on the 8 Aug 12 at 17:28
Great idea.

I myself have gone through this situation, because my external drive is the same brand and capacity of the internal hard drive - although the models are different.


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