Startup Disk Creator behavior

[Timmi]

"erase entire disk" is a handy inclusion, potentially saving the use in parallel of gPartEd.
USB Startup Disk Creator wipes off ALL partitions when you use the format function, and re-creates a new partition structure.

This is simply wrong, because we don't use 1GB flash disks anymore - they are 4, 8, 16! And who wants to dedicate a 16GB usb stick for a 1DB distro? (oh,. and the util doesn't let you set aside more than 4GB anyways for data - and that's kind of useless, because we usually will use the remainder of a larger usb stick for other stuff than session saving).

This app would be far more useful if it allowed you to keep partitions as-is - the checkbox "erase entire disk" should be relabelled as "reformat sdb1" and perform that function instead.

As it is now, it is labelled properly, but an intelligent individual assumes "nawwww... they surely wouldn't erase an entire 16GB usb drive for a 1GB distro! it'll leave the other partition alone... lets check the box"...! LOL

I lost of 5.5 GB of data.

[Timmi (cadout)]

forgive me for tagging this as security...
I didn't mean security in the sense of intrusion and exploit - but in the sense of potential cause for data loss.
It should be public.

[Timmi (cadout)]

MINT9 x64

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

I disagree with the bug report, however I'll leave that to the upstream devs to consider. Marking as upstream.

[Timmi (cadout)]

Thank you for leaving it.
I do understand your point of view.

But with software, should one not always err on the side of caution, not on the side of danger?

It's a simple fix: when more than one partition exists, offer to wipe out the entire partition (primary), not the entire disk be default.

In MANY cases it will do exactly what you want it to do: wipe everything out... but in many cases, there may be a second partition one wishes to leave intact.

Pass it on.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[KernelPanic (jfrusciante)]

I agree. Labels are correct but one does not assume the entire drive is wiped off.

I consider myself an advanced (and usually careful) user, but I put my 16Gb pendrive (3 primary partitions) and had it mistakenly wiped off. Maybe because I assumed what I thought it was "normal" behavior I saw in other softwares (namely http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/).

[Joe Linux (gbodley)]

I don't know exactly where to post my concern, but Start Up Disk Creator does not work with the latest release of Kubuntu 18.10. It's impossible to select an .iso file. To make a bootable USB stick. I have to use Linux Mint on another computer to create USB sticks. It's quite a nuisance.

[Timmi (cadout)]

The best USB Startup Disc creator on the planet is UNETBOOTIN.

The best one for creating a Startup USB with multiple ISOs on it, is YUMI.

You need not search further. They are the best ones. Very easy to use.

They all work on a similar principle, you have to select the distribution, browse to locate the ISO, and off you go.

I have noticed that on rare occasions (depending on your timing), when a new release of the distro comes out, you may need to download the new version of UNETBOOTIN or YUMI, or the created ISO may not work. So, if it doesn't work, and it was in the list, just download the updated version. Which, sometimes, follows days later.

CLOSE THIS THREAD. IT'S OLD. VERY OLD.