Need to preserve /home - confused by new filesystem selection process

Question

I am in a bind here.  My Thinkpad just took a dump and I really don't have a way to do a good backup.  I will not freak out if I lose what's on it, but I would really rather not.  Anyway, I have a good partition scheme already, so I don't need to set that up.  The new section to select the FS and mount points is confusing me.  By default, they are all saying RAW/No filesystem.  When I select a partition, there are options for filesystems, but no option to leave it alone.  What do I need to do to preserve the two partitions that I want left alone, but still have their mount points specified? 
Edit: for example, I have an NTFS partition.  next to the partition it says raw-> no_fs.  If I select it, I am asked if I want to recreate it.  No matter what I select I am put into a screen to select a fs, and ntfs is not listed.  If I choose nothing, will it be erased and made into a raw partition?  This new system is very confusing, I think I liked the old one better!  Oh well.  Adapt and overcome!  Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks very much
JTS
Last edited by jimmy the saint (2009-09-05 06:02:05)

Answer 1

jimmy the saint wrote:I am in a bind here.  My Thinkpad just took a dump and I really don't have a way to do a good backup.  I will not freak out if I lose what's on it, but I would really rather not.  Anyway, I have a good partition scheme already, so I don't need to set that up.  The new section to select the FS and mount points is confusing me.  By default, they are all saying RAW/No filesystem.
The "raw/no filesystem" things isn't the most clear way to phrase it (I should probably improve that, please file a feature request), but basically it means the installer won't do anything on them.
jimmy the saint wrote:Edit: for example, I have an NTFS partition.  next to the partition it says raw-> no_fs.  If I select it, I am asked if I want to recreate it.  No matter what I select I am put into a screen to select a fs, and ntfs is not listed.  If I choose nothing, will it be erased and made into a raw partition?
If you selected "yes" on "recreate?" it should ask something like "which FS do you want this to be?" and otherwise it will ask "which FS is this?" (subtle difference).
If you said "no" on the recreate question, it will not erase/overwrite the filesystem.
the fact that ntfs is not listed is probably a bug (file a bug for this).
for now, you can get around it like so:
in /usr/lib/aif/core/libs/lib-ui-interactive.sh, on line 431 (just below the block of lines that are like '[ $part_type = .... FSOPTS= ..') put this:
FSOPTS="$FSOPTS ntfs NTFS"
If you then restart the installer, it will allow you to choose ntfs as well.
jimmy the saint wrote:This new system is very confusing, I think I liked the old one better!  Oh well.  Adapt and overcome!  Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks very much
The new one is much better, but there are some details in special cases like this that need to improved.  let's work at this together to improve this (you file feature requests and bugreports, I help you and change the code where needed, you tell me if it works)