requirement to (re)format volumes when installing

[Felix Miata]

On 2012-12-10 15:56 (GMT-0800) Adam Williamson composed:

> Windows is very keen on formatting disks, or at least was last time I
> checked it.

Lately?

>  You had to go into an advanced dialog to do anything other
> than let it have its way with an entire disk.

Not that I can remember seeing.

I always partition prior to installing anything.

As a consequence, whenever I boot WinXP install CD, without any action on my 
part beyond accepting license and answering are you sure, it presents me a 
list of partitions, and waits on me to select one to be the installation 
target. After I select, it presents a list that includes:

do not format
format FAT
format NTFS

This simplicity is what one gets from Mageia via readonly=1, and what I 
expect from other installers.

The only "its way" I encounter happens when I forget to set a "C:" primary 
"active" before booting the XP installation CD, whereupon it does so "for" me 
sometime before it finishes. From what I know from mailing lists, forums, and 
conversations over more than a decade, "its way" also includes replacing the 
MBR code if it finds non-legacy code there, e.g. Grub. When Grub has been 
installed to a primary partition instead of MBR, it leaves Grub untouched, 
and the only post-Windows installation "repair" necessary to restore active 
status to the partition carrying the master bootloader, if desired.

I installed Win8 beta once on a multiboot system with far more native Linux 
partitions than Windows or DOS native. It did nothing that required me to fix 
anything afterward, other than removing it after I discovered how its new UI 
doesn't work, and restoring C: to its pre-installation state to get access to 
XP's D: back.

"Its way" more appropriately describes what Grub does to a HDs first sectors 
if not aptly constrained.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/