Comment 27 for bug 682429

It turns out that this may be a duplicate of bug 659106 but in that case, from the info provided, it appears Paul began with an extended partition so that blows a hole in my theory about this only being reproducible with only primary partitions existing :^(

I'd still refer everyone to bug 655950 and also bug 652852. Also bug 657397 may be loosely related.

After following this dilemma off and on at the forums for several weeks I'm quite convinced that displaying the "Use entire partition" and "Use entire disc" options after having already rejected the option to "Erase and use entire disc", and having selected "Install alongside other OS" instead, serve no reasonable purpose and only provide an opportunity to destroy existing data and/or any existing OS's.

If the installer finds an acceptable partitioning arrangement (ie: three or less primary partitions) it displays the option to "install alongside" as it should, so under what circumstance would a person want to use and erase an existing partition? If they're performing a reinstall over existing partitions the "manual/advanced" option provides the proper tools to do so (including the ability to not format an existing /home).

And this is an area where we must all put our "noob shoes" on. Most Windows users don't know the difference between a disc and a partition so we're simply offering potentially destructive options. Sadly this has also effected some fairly long term Ubuntu users.

OTOH since both Vista and Win7 have their own partitioning tools the "Use largest continuous free space" option was truly brilliant and IMHO the safest possible dual-boot method for a first timer, aside from possibly Wubi.

Regardless I'm not going to mark anything as a duplicate ATM, I'll leave that decision up to the devs.