Install over Windows 8 partition erased whole HDD.

[Eduardo Cardoso]

Tried to install Ubuntu 12.10 on the Windows 8 partition, with the first option at the menu, something like "Install over Windows 8". My HDD was split in 2 partitions (500Gb) 400Gb for Windows 7 and 100Gb for WIndows 8. And I was pretty sure that it was saying Windows 8, not the whole hdd. I'm using Dell Studio 1458 (notebook), Core i5 M450, 6Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD, video card Radeon HD4580.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1073968/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Micheal Walls (michealpwalls)]

This bug also also affects me, using Ubuntu 13.04.

I previously had Kubuntu 13.04 installed alongside Windows 7.
My disk was using a GUID Partition Table. Windows 7 was installed first, using sda1 for the boot loader, sda2 for recovery and sda4 for data.
sda5 was for Kubuntu 13.04 data and sda6 was linuxswap.

Upon selecting "Erase Ubuntu 13.04 and instal Ubuntu 13.04", Ubuquity (The Ubuntu Installer) deleted the *entire* DIsk partition, created a new one.

This is brutal. I've lost absolutely *everything*... Gutted!

This is a serious bug. There is absolutely no reason why any partition other than sda5 had to be formatted... I specifically chose the option "Erase Ubuntu 13.04 and install Ubuntu 13.04", which is not what happened. The entire disk was erased, not "Ubuntu 13.04".

[Micheal Walls (michealpwalls)]

I think, maybe if the description of that option in Ubiquity was changed from this:
"Erase Ubuntu 13.04 and Reinstall" - "Warning: This will delete all your Ubuntu 13.04 programs, documents, photos, music, and any other files."

To this:

"Erase ENTIRE DISK and Reinstall" - "Warning: This will destroy ALL data on your ENTIRE DISK. If you have ANY other operating systems installed, select this with caution."

Food for thought :\

[Micheal Walls (michealpwalls)]

After getting the machine dual-booting both Ubuntu 13.04 and Windows 7, I realized this machine is booting much much differently than any of my other machines.

It's using a UEFI chip, not a BIOS chip. It's currently booting both Windows 7 and Ubuntu in EFI mode (With SecureBoot disabled, since Win7 fails the certificate check) and here's what's very interesting, which I think is why Ubiquity did what it did (To me as well as the original poster, posting about Windows 8.. Which would also have been booting in EFI mode.)

When I boot Ubiquity in EFI mode, with the disk using a GUID Partition Tables, Ubiquity cannot see Windows 7's EFI bootloader. If I boot the machine with F2 and go into the EFI firmware settings, under the Boot tab my options include "Windows Boot Loader (P0: hddserialnumber)" and "Ubuntu (P0: hddserialnumber)"

If I select "Windows Boot Loader" as the primary boot device, it boots up the Windows Vista+ BOOTMGR and shows Windows... But it can *not* see GRUB.

If I reboot the machine, goto EFI firmware setup and set "Ubuntu" as the primary boot device, the machine boots straight to GRUB... But GRUB can *not* see the Windows 7 BOOTMGR.

Sorry for 3 long posts. Just trying to put as much information as possible here, since neither of us have any kind of report to show for. Hopefully this extra info will help to correct this behavior.

I think the problem is that, with these new EFI machines, the EFI boot loaders can't see each other, even though they're all stored in the same sda1 partition.

[Sebastian Philipp (seb-philipp-z)]

It also deleted my D: partition when I chose to "Replace Windows 7". And my PC doesn't use EFI. Luckily I made a backup a month before... I support the suggestion of @michaelpwalls to insert the warning that the whole drive will be formatted.

So this appears no matter whether another OS is detected or not.