[HLUG] BACKUP YOUR DATA before messing with linux

[Mark Broadbent]

George at dicegeorge.com <dicegeorge at hotmail.com> wrote :

> BACKUP YOUR DATA before messing with linux

I think it is important to back your data what ever operating system your using.  I advised two or three people that they should be backing up there files whether or not Linux was being used.

The installers give very big warnings that resizing partitions is a potentially destructive operation is something goes wrong and that all data should be backed up.

> 
> This was the main point of my presentation
> but at the last minute I was told there wasnt any time for me to speak.

I do apologise about that, I didn't get to do my presentation either.  I felt it was more important at that stage to get people interacting with us as a group so people could ask questions (and there were a lot of questions).  I believe we spent about 45-50 minutes doing that before we packed away.  We have also, in principle, been asked to do a part two to our presentation which will allow other people to have presentation slots.

> I had other improtant things to do yesterday
> but I'd promised to come to the presentation.

Your presence was very much appreciated and I thank you for making the effort to come.

> I think you boys were irresponsible
> to enthuse beginners with Linuxes
> and giving out CDs
> which with one click can reformat a users hard disk
> trashing hundreds of hours of work
> without stressing the need to backup data
> to external hard drives
> twice!

I don't believe we were irresponsible, we covered enough to ensure people were careful and as I have before there are plenty of warnings in the installers well before anything is done to the users hard drive.  
Some of them may have been beginners, but they have all been encouraged to subscribe to this list before performing the install and they are all capable of reading the instructions beforehand.

Thanks
Mark