From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Mar 14 3:17:34 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from alpha.comkey.com.au (alpha.comkey.com.au [203.9.152.215]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9153C15082 for ; Sun, 14 Mar 1999 03:17:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gjb@comkey.com.au) Received: (qmail 11748 invoked by uid 1001); 14 Mar 1999 11:06:17 -0000 Message-ID: <19990314110617.11747.qmail@alpha.comkey.com.au> X-Posted-By: GBA-Post 1.04 06-Feb-1999 X-PGP-Fingerprint: 5A91 6942 8CEA 9DAB B95B C249 1CE1 493B 2B5A CE30 Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 21:06:16 +1000 From: Greg Black To: "G. Adam Stanislav" Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Horror story References: <36E9D60C.F26F86EE@uswest.net> <3.0.6.32.19990313090839.008ded20@mail.bfm.org> In-reply-to: <3.0.6.32.19990313090839.008ded20@mail.bfm.org> of Sat, 13 Mar 1999 09:08:39 CST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG There's an important lesson here, for anybody installing or upgrading any operating system. [Details snipped.] > I do not want to reinstall Windows from scratch: I would lose years of > data, and I have no problems with my existing Windows installation (besides > the usual problem of it being Windows, of course :->). [...] > This is very frustrating: Not only did I lose my original FreeBSD 2.2.8 > installation I had on my first drive for months, [...] This sort of thing should never happen. With any Unix variant that I have used in the last million years, you are warned about it. I have no idea if the drones from Redmond provide similar warnings, but I'd be surprised if they didn't. What's the warning? BACK UP ANYTHING THAT MATTERS **BEFORE** YOU START. Sorry for shouting, but this is the single most important instruction. If you have data on your disks that you don't wish to lose and for some peculiar reason you are either unwilling or unable to back it up, either physically remove the disk with the precious data or forget about the installation until you have backed up your data. There are no reasons ever to ignore this advice, no matter how much you know or how much experience you have or how clever you are. Things go wrong. Backups allow you to recover. This response does nothing to help solve the actual problem, of course -- but I haven't followed the saga carefully enough to be able to say anything constructive about that and other people are trying to help. However, the warning here needs to be seen and heeded by everybody. -- Greg Black To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message