(Setup an 'unformatted' partition filling the of the drive.)(just 1 partition filling up the drive)

When a partition is deleted, the file system remains.  This permits recovery of the file system data if you did not wish to delete the partition.

If you wish the file system to no longer be recognized, then select the partition and choose the menu option:  Format to --> cleared.  Alternatively you can reformat the partition to another type of file system.

Does that help explain what is happening?

This behaviour is as designed.

There's a bug. Please re-read my original post :)))

(the Comment #1, was to clarify a typo I made..
I didn't want to give the impression that the partition header started from sector 0.. and that I realize there's a bug)

I do not wish to delete the partition, but wipe out the whole drive, with a re-creation of the partition table.

^ This worked perfectly. And so it doesn't make sense at all for 'mylinux' label to re-show up..

It's very odd behaviour, and I don't see the point of giving a warning when re-creating the partition table, if there's still data being recalled from existing partitions..  and to me it looked alot like a bug..

The program is confusing if I cannot do a complete scratch out from re-creating the partition table by the mere fact there's a warning message 'all data' will be destroyed.. even as an advanced user it doesn't look like a feature that is suitable..

I appreciate the feature for the format to->clear, for partitions themselves, but if the partition table is wiped out and there's confirmation in doing so, I don't see why I have to worry more.. No other partition tools work like this, and it'll create alot of confusion.. especially for this particular case-- I was intending on making a Physical raid partition, and the 'unformatted' option had to be selected(immediately after a Partition Table creation) , and the later on the 'raid' flag has to be added.. 

If it's still a feature that is kept then I think it should be documented because this behaviour imho looks very confusing..

(In reply to comment #5)
> No other partition tools work like this, and it'll create alot of confusion

What "other partition tools" do you mean?

Deleting a partition only deletes the entry from the partition table.  This is how fdisk, gdisk, parted, and many other partition tools work.

Writing a new partition table effectively makes all of the partition table slots empty.

None of these tools wipe the whole drive.  You can of course do this, but it will take a long time for large drives.

Regarding the warning when creating a new partition table, this is valid.  Though one can often rebuilt a partition table after it has been overwritten, this is not for the faint of heart.  Hence from a user perspective, writing a new partition table to a device effectively cuts off a users access to the data because the partitions no longer exist.

Yes I know this.

I compared to 0.13, and the option for making a partition 'clear' wasn't available.

I agree with the feature, but not if re-creating the partition table.

This is a new feature, but it's only confusing and only easily usable for the first partition if 'unformatted' was chosen.

I also notice 'unformatted' becomes unavailable after creating a partition, and the option 'clear' becomes available.

I would tally among users for the particular behaviour and I'm pretty sure many would agree with me..

That is if one re-creates a partition table , any existing partitions should be 'cleared' (wiping off metadata at the header of the partition or) because there's already the message giving enough of an idea of point-of-no-return..

When I said 'wipe' the drive, I really meant the tool not giving in of undoing any prior changes.. 

I know I can always dd sector 0 of a drive, and this does not wipe out the drive. If I opened gparted on this drive, I would be able to still see the previous partition if i chose 'unformatted' partition type.. I understand this.. but this is not a smart feature because there are already tools that reconsruct the whole partition table rather than just the first partition..

How would a new user even know he can restore his partition table with Gparted by choosing 'unformatted'.. It's possible the new user may think that unformat means zero'ing out the partition..

If you'd like to implement these features, you should use the logic code from gpart/testdisk where more than 1 partition can be guessed to re-create the partition table..

I would suggest a 'find' lost partitions option somewhere, as this makes alot more sense that one is trying to reconstruct lost partitions.. Choosing 'unformatted' doesn't make any sense.. I appreciate the efforts and I support a partition table recovery feature but I believe if you tallied among users they would very much agree with me, that the way it's implemented doesn't seem very practical .. When I said other partition tools don't do this, it's true, but I'm not dwelling into the idea whole partitions zero'ed out as this would take forever to perform.. but this 'recovery' feature is confusing and no partition tool does offers recovery in this way. You'll only be ending up confusing users..(tally it :). 

I would encourage you to tally a 'find' for recovery feature than using 'unformatted', because I think this is alienating the usability of the tool.. The feature is ok, but not by the way it's implemented..

As I stated earlier, GParted works the same as other GNU/Linux partitioning tools.  By this I mean that writing a new partition table only writes "empty" partition entries for each partition table "slot".  The actual data that might have existed in previous partitions is still on the disk.  This is how fdisk, gdisk, parted, and GParted work.

This is a design decision that has been made to err on the side of safety.  We have no plans to change this design decision.

If instead you are looking for a way to remove all data from a partition or the drive, then perhaps you are seeking a feature already requested in the following report:

[url=https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=619348]Bug 619348 - GParted should have option to shred (secure partition deletion)[/url]

"This is how fdisk, gdisk, parted, and GParted work."

I know that's how all these tools work. And that is not to change any partition data.

I'm talking about after 0.13, the "decision" you're talking about sounds like you want people to be able to recover the first partition.

The emphasis you gave me was related to deleting a "partition" rather than "re-creating the partition table"(and I understand that if you set a partition, not the first, to unformatted, you can have see what was there before.. I understand this.)

I believe you can keep the feature, but there's a serious flaw here..  and albeit a very unthoughtful one because if the partition table is re-created only the first partition has to be set to 'unformatted' and any prior magic number would be read from the partition header..

I was intending on making a RAID partition, and alot of people don't test this area and so others in my position would say the same I would .. A filesystem label popping up is confusing..

Alot of people haven't tried past 0.13 yet.. and this is where the new feature comes in..

'Clear' and 'Unformatted' seems to add more complexity of what's already there.. 

What's the objective for GParted? To recover partitions?

Perhaps someone can help document on what to expect for making a linux raid partition, (the unformatted partition option has to be selected).. and to select 'clear'.. because that's what's supposed to be done from my understanding of this new design

This 'feature' you speak of wasn't in 0.13, so to me it seems experimental and possibly even be thinking it over by seeing the feedback you're getting from users.

As I said, majority of people don't setup raid.. I'm one of these people giving feedback in this area..

I agree with the objectives.. but you guys are definitely getting this wrong(I'd say implement a 'Find lost partition' from a menu option or something-- less confusion!).. You'll see once more people start trying out after 0.13 there'll be alot of confusion and eventually this will be detracted..

I actually thought it was a bug.. and now in the future I'd have no idea what is a bug and what isn't.. Hey, I'm only trying to help, and I'm giving my feedback.. If you want to develop a design that doesn't reflect the majority of the users or needs to have a confusing fallback for setting up a raid partition, then sure you're risking losing a user base.. I don't think this is in your best interests which is why I suggest you make a tally about this feature, and you'll see the majority will agree with me..

The new feature of 'clear' is quite self-explanatory but you guys shouldn't get all too lenient for people playing with their toying. There's virtualbox for the whole world to use.. and any partition tool is always dangerous.. so if people mess things up they would know they are to blame and not you guys.

You guys shouldn't get bent if people mess up their own drives. That's their fault, and not yours. 

Keep the tool simple. I won't be reporting about this feature, but other people come on here to bug report will ask if this is a design or a bug

You can stick with the gun, and we'll here keep looking into how it all plays out..

I'm not sure that we are on the same page of understanding.  I thought your request was to wipe the drive when writing a new partition table.  Now I think you are looking for a way to create a partition for RAID that wipes out the file system signatures so that previous file system labels do not appear.

If I understand your request correctly, I believe the following steps will do what you are expecting:

1)  Using GParted 0.16.1, write a new partition table to a device

2)  Create a new Primary partition of type "cleared" and apply this operation

3)  Use Manage Flags to set the RAID flag

With the above steps, you should not see any previous file system labels.

Is this what you are looking for?

If a drive had filesystem data on it and I'm setting up two raid partitions on a drive..I would zero out where previous filesystem data was stored, and I know a post was placed about this.. but it's not up to me to decide whether to incorporate it, but I think it's useful for numerous reasons..   

So say I deleted ext4 and swap that covered the length of the drive, I would prefer to do

1) Delete the partitions, and according to the latest gparted it's kind of irrelevant if I chose 'clear' because I'd like to zero out what was entirely there
2) Create an one unformatted partition in whatever way it can be attained and exit gparted.. But create the unformatted space covering the whole drive, since that's where the two previous filesystem data were on the drive (ext4, swap)
3) cat /dev/zero > /dev/<sdaN>, where N is the unformatted partition( or I can go for zeroing out the entire drive anyways albeit unnecessary)
4) Create the raid partitions

but I did a case where I resize an ntfs partition, allocated a new unformatted partition, and then zero'd out just that unformatted partition.. so I've used it in a less intrusive test..

I think creating the raid partitions like this solves two potential issues, one is with mdadm (Linux's software raid tool) which scans for raid metadata at the beginning and I also think at the end of a partition, and the other is with block-level backup tools-- that would be backing up nonstructured data instead of quickly merging zerodata value bytes(consuming backup storage), concerted if it's ext4 or not..

(I don't know if an ntfsresize zero's out prior location filesystem marks if items have to be moved but these remarks would relate with ntfs-3g tool authors)

There's another benefit despite zero'ing out is very intrusive and time-consuming. I use writing bytevalues of zero across new drives because it's something that's easy to do as a quick shot sector test across the whole drive.. 

With big drives of today in the terabytes, I believe it's a good idea for people to have some way to perform a quick test and get into raid setups..

I've seen partition tools that do full wipe, but I can live without it with gparted.. 

There are backup tools that are filesystem block-based, and others are disk sector block-based.. The backup tools that are disk-sector based that backup partition bytes would be backing up nonstructured data.. but I think the makers of good backup tools know people are careless with their partitioning tools and understand the shortfalls between these two block-based backup methods.. For either case, one cannot always be sure what block-based type backup is being used, so that's why I prefer to zero out previous partition bytes when I make changes to the partition table..

Since gparted starting offering 'clear', one would speculate if it actually did  a full wipe (though it'll be quick to uncover by the immediate result of 'clear' after hitting 'apply').. Now that post that was mentioned with other people requesting about 'zeroing' out a drive, since that is 2010 ( https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=619348 ), and 'clear' was being introduced as a limitted form of 'zeroing' out just recently, why not offer a more thorough edition where the user is given the prompt if he really wants to clear the whole partition ?.. I'm letting alone any prior confusions with this new feature because there's still alot of concerns as to why zeroing out a partition is actually healthy besides it being very time consuming.. and if it's time-consuming, why not just give a little warning to the user that such an option would be time-consuming? (Perhaps gparted's documentation should harbor on why zero'ing out devices isn't a distraction but a necessity in practical cases, especially for certain backup tools, quick test of the drive, etc..)

I am still confused as to what change this report is requesting.

Would you be able to state in a sentence or two what change or enhancement this report is about?

(In reply to comment #2)
> When a partition is deleted, the file system remains.  This permits recovery of
> the file system data if you did not wish to delete the partition.
> 
> If you wish the file system to no longer be recognized, then select the
> partition and choose the menu option:  Format to --> cleared.  Alternatively
> you can reformat the partition to another type of file system.
> 
> Does that help explain what is happening?
> 
> This behaviour is as designed.

You brought up the link... I was reflecting on it with this new feature which didn't exists on 0.13. I'm explicitly talking about the 'clear' and anything that it does.. 

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=619348 talks about zeroing a device.  The new feature you talk about does something like this from what I understand.

I'm confused as to why you brought up this link about not offering to zeroing out a device completely but somewhat implement it with the new feature of 'clear' (which wasn't on the last time I was using gparted about a week ago with edition 0.13)

If zeroing a device is done partially, I don't see why it can't be done fully..

> I'm confused as to why you brought up this link about not offering to zeroing
> out a device completely <snip>

I brought up the link because I thought that you were perhaps requesting the zero partition feature.  The bug report details state GParted _version_ 0.16.1 which has the clear feature.  This is why I thought you were requesting something other than just clearing file system signatures.

> If zeroing a device is done partially, I don't see why it can't be done
> fully..

It is not a case of "it can't be done".  We did not wish to add such a long running task as zeroing the entire partition until we could improve tracking of command progress.  See:
Bug #685740 - Refactor to use asynchronous command execution

For more background information, the clear feature and the zero feature are two different requests that have been tracked by two different bug reports.

The clear partition feature _only_ wipes out file system signatures.  Since this involves writing to a small portion of the partition, this operation is quick.
See: Bug #688882 - Improve clearing of file system signatures

The zero partition feature is to wipe the _entire_ partition or overwrite it with zeroes.  This will be a task that takes a significant amount of time to run to completion.
As listed before, see:
Bug #619348 - GParted should have option to shred (secure partition deletion)


Now with those answers out of the way, I still have a question for you.

Is this request for the ability to zero out a partition?

"The zero partition feature is to wipe the _entire_ partition or overwrite it
with zeroes."

It's still placing zeros partially on the partition at the beginning, yes filesystem signatures.. 

You guys are just getting bent hooking to impractical usability. A user has to 'click' apply after visually seeing his own changes..

"GParted also performs file system signature erasure when creating
new unformatted partitions.  This will prevent users from recovering
from partition"

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688882

There's an undo, an 'apply' .. how many more emergency stops is the user supposed to be aware of? It's ridiculous. Keep the tool simple. I suggest a Legal Disclaimer when the program loads, this way you can be absolutely sure no user or corporation can come after you.. It's like a car with two brakes.. We're not all learning how to drive here.. This is why there are things called backups. Any sane mind should "backup" their drives always before using any partition tool no matter what. Make life easier on yourselves.. make the program how you really want it to be, and not by fear that someone may do the wrong thing when there's enough secure options on the table.. You're actually creating confusion on these unnecessary adjustment "workarounds".. Your development is actually stagnating from the way I see it.. quite a shame.. It's your project, but this is how I feel about it..

http://redobackup.org/ Offers a one-click backup solution.

https://plus.google.com/communities/113794631639903079139/stream/bba6a6f7-3358-4d59-871a-7a2c9f772762

Again I ask, what is the report a request for?

It's the same. I thought it was a bug, but it's a "feature" workaround of something that never existed before 0.13. It's new and it doesn't make sense. It's your baby, but I might remove this tool from my inventory if I ever stumble upon another feature like this that looks like a bug to me. It's confusing and I'm only trying to help. Thanks.

Thank you for your response.

Marking this report as a duplicate.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 619348 ***

My apologies westlake2012.  My responses could be considered "short".  We do appreciate when users report problems to us, so thank you for persevering.