Economy Size Geek

I’m sorting through a problem with my laptop and I wanted to do a fresh install of Gutsy - without formatting the drive. I just moved all my old system files into a directory and fired up the installer. I wanted it to use my old root file system without formatting. The installer won’t let you do that :(

Don’t worry there is an easy work around. Before you start the installer open a shell and type


sudo mv /lib/partman/check.d/12system_partitions_formatted /tmp


That turns off the check to make sure you are formatting your root partition. Now you can reinstall without formatting your main partition (assuming you choose the manual option on the installer screen). Make sure you have enough room for the install or bad things probably happen :)