https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=991093
Bug ID: 991093 Summary: Innacurate information about deleting data in 12. Storage and partitioning Product: Fedora Documentation Version: devel Component: install-guide Assignee: pbokoc@redhat.com Reporter: pbokoc@redhat.com QA Contact: docs-qa@lists.fedoraproject.org CC: oglesbyzm@gmail.com, pbokoc@redhat.com
Below is a copypaste of two e-mails from docs@lists.fedoraproject.org explaining the issue. ================================================================================ Mail 1 from Adam Williamson:
Someone on the forums kindly pointed out an inaccuracy in the Installation Guide:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/19/html/Installation_Quick_Start...
"All data will be erased during installation from the disks you select at this stage. Do not select disks that contain data you want to preserve."
This is not correct. It would be correct to say that no data can *possibly* be deleted from any disks you *don't* select at this stage, but it is not true that all data will be removed from disks you *do* select. Suggesting that this is the case prevents people from following lots of common install paths.
What actually happens to the data on the selected disks depends on the user's choices at Installation Options and 'custom partitioning' or Reclaim Space. If you go to custom partitioning, basically, you're in complete control of what happens; you can do all sorts of stuff from there, but no data/partitions will be lost unless you explicitly choose for that to happen.
If the disk has sufficient unpartitioned space and you just pick the easiest 'install into empty space' path, no existing data will be disturbed, though any existing bootloader in the MBR will be overwritten (this is normal and has always been the case).
If you go through Reclaim Space, you get the choice of what existing partitions to delete or resize. ===================================================================== Mail 2 from Chris Murphy:
Yeah, the user actually needs to go to some extreme lengths to erase all data on the selected disk. In Custom, it's deleted one partition at a time, with an optional shortcut that popsup offering to delete all related partitions (which still may not be all data on disk). Further, a summary pops up and shows what will be deleted in red text.
In Guided, user either must set each partition to be deleted, or click on the disk (make model number) and set it to delete which then shows all partitions being set to delete as well.