Comment 0 for bug 164865

Binary package hint: ubiquity

The following applies when installing a fresh copy of ubuntu using manual partition selection where some partitions are not formatted (for example /home partition). When the some partitions that is not to be formatted is recognised but not mountable (due to unclean unmount, etc.) other partitions that come first in the partition list, like the target root partition, might get formatted before the installer sees the other partition is not mountable. The installer than stops because an error occurs and might leave the system in an unbootable state (as the target root could be the same as the old root).

In my case this was resolved by running fsck manually, but i can imagine there are cases where this does not work.

To make this more robust I suggest the following:
- check if partitions that need no formatting can be mounted before formatting other partitions
- if this fails, ask to run fsck which might resolve it

When these both fail, the other partitions are not touched which might leave the system in a bootable state which would otherwise not be the case.

Maybe this can be a part of the 'hardy-ubiquity-reliability' blueprint for hardy:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/hardy-ubiquity-reliability
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Harry de Boer