On Sun, Sep 20, 2015 at 03:54:18PM -0400, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> 
> Hilarity ensued. I had to explain to several engineers, for both VM's
> and for repurposing hardware, that you should really clear the first
> blocks of a disk before handing it off to an installer, precisely to
> clear this and other kinds of confusion.
> 

First few blocks is not good enough. I had trouble with RHEL/SL installer
finding some old md raid signatures or superblocks or something and refusing
to use the disk (after asking and answering all the installer question,
injury+insult).

The installer must have a button for "yes, I want to use this disk, yes, I know
it has/had some data, yes, I am know what I am doing, just use this disk already".

But people who write installers have no brains. How else you explain
multiple disks being presented as "you have 6 disks: wdc, wdc, wdc, wdc, wdc and wdc,
you *must* chose the right one to install the bootloader". (some installers
helpfully tell you the disk size, so you know which one of the identically
listed "6tb wdc disk" to use). Aparently the thinking is that presenting users
with disk serial numbers will confuse them (and forger about telling them
the physical SATA ports or SATA topology).

-- 
Konstantin Olchanski
Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow!
Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca
Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada