1 Topic by stormhead

  • stormhead
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  • Registered: 2008-07-31
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Topic: [SOLVED] Bug when copying partitions?

Hi everyone,

it looks like GParted allows to copy one partition over an existing one (cf. http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?pid=11093 ). From my point of view, this is a severe bug that allows easy data destruction.
The "clean" way would be to refuse this copy operation, and if one would intend to copy one partition to a place that is already allocated by another partition, (s)he would have to manually delete this "target" partition first. This would not dramatically reduce the usability of GParted, but it would prevent data loss in some cases.
So the "feature" I'd request is to remove the possibility to copy one partition over another existing one.

2 Reply by gedakc

  • gedakc
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Re: [SOLVED] Bug when copying partitions?

Thank you stormhead for this suggestion.

I agree that being able to paste a copied partition into an existing partition is dangerous,  and not worth saving the extra step of deleting the destination partition first.  Pasting should only be permitted in unallocated space.

A fix for this problem has been committed to the gnome SVN repository for inclusion in the next release of GParted (0.4.0).

3 Reply by SaddleTrampNC

  • SaddleTrampNC
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Re: [SOLVED] Bug when copying partitions?

It's only dangerous to those that don't pay attention to what they are doing.  Disabling this ability also affects those of us who use copy/paste without any problems.  How can I enable it (Presently running Jaunty 9.04 & gParted 0.4.3-0ubuntu1)

4 Reply by gedakc

  • gedakc
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Re: [SOLVED] Bug when copying partitions?

Is there some advantage to be able to paste into an existing partition?
I mean other than one less step to first delete the partition?

The code change that prevents pasting into an existing partition can be viewed
in the git repository at:
Prevent a copied partition from being pasted into an existing partition

5 Reply by SaddleTrampNC

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Re: [SOLVED] Bug when copying partitions?

It may appear that I may be over reacting in my responses, however, in this situation I am not.  Here is the reply I posted in Bugzilla.  If I aggravated anyone over this, I sincerely apologize.

Comment #5 from Robert (points: 0)
2009-05-13 21:33 UTC [reply]

Thank you very much for the quick response and the code changes.  Without
getting into great detail, time is very important to me when working on several
systems at one time.  And rather than having to perform that extra step, it's
easier and quicker for me if I can flow thru a sequence of events in as few
steps as possible.  Would this be true had gParted always been with the change
to have to delete the existing partition first??  More than likely not, as it
would then have been a standard procedure in copying/moving partitions.  But as
it stands, it wasn't that way before.  My philosophy is and has always been,
'if it works, don't try to fix it; if it doesn't work because of human error,
change the human'.
Thank you again for taking the time to respond and providing the answers.

6 Reply by gedakc

  • gedakc
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Re: [SOLVED] Bug when copying partitions?

The ability to paste into an existing partition was disabled in GParted version
0.4.0.  This ability has been re-enabled along with a warning dialog that
indicates the data in the existing partition will be lost if the copy and paste
operation is applied.

The code enhancement for this request has been committed to the git repository
for inclusion in the next release of GParted (0.5.0.)

See bug #582101 - Can not copy ext4 partitions to another location