Anthony E. Greene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Douglas Alan wrote:
>>> I haven't used kickstart myself but I would expect it to remove all >>> partitions on all disks if you told it to remove all existing >>> partitions .. >> That's a mighty literal interpretation of "all" when it comes to >> valuable data. I can't imagine any circumstance when I would want all >> partitions on all disk drives to be removed during an OS install, > 1. You get a Windows computer from someone, but you only use Linux. In that case, you can explicitly delete these partitions or configure the install program to delete these partitions for you, rather than have the install program *automatically* delete them for you. > 2. You have a standard config of partitions, OS, & apps that is > different from what's on the box (this is the most common use of > kickstart). Exactly. But my standard config is limited to the boot disk drive. In fact, I explicitly told Kickstart to *only* make partitions on the boot disk drive. It has no good reason to mess with the partition tables of disk drives that it is not putting partitions onto. > UNIX-like systems do not make such a big deal out of using different > drives. They're just mount points, all located somewhere under the '/' > directory. Indeed. How does this imply that the OS installer should delete patitions on drives it was told not to put partitions onto? > Even nework shares are treated like this. There is nothing > like the drive letters used in DOS/Win because drives are not such a > big deal. On a single machine "all partitions" is interpreted in the > context of the machine. Apparently you are correct in that this is how the Red Hat installer operates. But that doesn't mean that it *should* behave this way. I explcitly told the Red Hat installer to put partitions *only* on hda. And indeed, it follows those instructions perfectly, and put partitions only on hda. It has no business, however, modifying the partition tables on other drives that it is not putting partitions onto. That is just plain wrong. > > and there is no option to Kickstart telling it to remove partitions > > only on the boot disk drive. One typically assumes that an OS > > installer behaves somewhat reasonably. Apparently, that is asking > > too much in this case. > It is behaving reasonably. It's just using a different set of > assumptions than you are. Sure, it is behaving reasonably. If we are willing to accept stupid assumptions, that is. It amazes me how often people will defend clearly incorrect behavior. > > Unfortuntely, the data is not mine, but rather the head of the > > department's. > So, you did an OS install on a department head's computer using an > unfamiliar procedure without backing up the data to a safe place > first. Sometimes experience really is the best teacher. I hope this > lesson doesn't turn out to be too expensive. It's not my job to backup anyone's data. That's each user's responsibility. Nor did I have a place to back it up to, even if I had wanted to. And the only reason I was doing an OS install, is because the Red Hat upgrader made the computer unbootable. |>oug -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
