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Etcher should warn that the disk will be formatted or erased #3289

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pdcastro opened this issue Aug 28, 2020 · 5 comments
Open

Etcher should warn that the disk will be formatted or erased #3289

pdcastro opened this issue Aug 28, 2020 · 5 comments

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@pdcastro
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Many users (especially those in the IoT community) understand that "Flashing" a disk means reformatting / erasing it, but not all users do (see attached support thread). Etcher uses only the term "flashing" on the GUI, whereas more commonly, the terms "formatting" and "erasing" are used (especially respectively on Windows and macOS).

Perhaps a confirmation pop-up could be raised when the button "Flash!" is clicked, and this pop-up could read something along the lines of:

 
Flashing the selected drive will reformat / erase it, and all existing data on the drive will be lost.

[ Confirm ]     [ Cancel ]

[✓] Don't show this prompt again for 30 days
 

  • Etcher version: 1.5.106
  • Operating system and architecture: any (macOS 10.14.6)
  • Image flashed: any
  • Do you see any meaningful error information in the DevTools? N/A
@jellyfish-bot
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[pdcastro] This issue has attached support thread https://jel.ly.fish/8a6d37c5-8c9f-4e07-821d-6dc98dbd498b

@lurch
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lurch commented Aug 29, 2020

See also #3049

@FloMiau
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FloMiau commented Sep 16, 2020

Nobody likes warnings. Maybe call the button "Erase and Flash" or something like that.

@dtischler
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Adding an additional data point here, as a user made this same request in the comments on one of our blog posts, http://disq.us/p/2bzxux1

@jharris1993
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jharris1993 commented Oct 17, 2020 •
edited

Nobody likes warnings. Maybe call the button "Erase and Flash" or something like that.

Au contrare!

What people DON'T like is to see valuable data go "poof!" because someone doesn't know that "flash" means "nuke-and-destroy".

Warnings are annoying, but - like sudo - they exist for a reason.

Additional thought:
Placing a "hide the warning" selection within the same dialog as the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons is giving Murphy's Law a free ride towards disaster!

All it takes is a slight tremor on a touch-screen, an errant palm rub on a touch-pad, or a three year old bumping the hand holding the mouse to send an important and necessary warning into nowhere-land.

A better choice is to place it within a configuration setting such as:

Warn user that flashing a device is a destructive process
[ X ] Always warn
[    ] Warn only once during a session
[    ] Never warn

This let's the advanced user punt on the warnings, a somewhat advanced user opt for a single warning, and the non-technical user get all warnings.

Of course, "Always warn" should be the default.

@dfunckt dfunckt mentioned this issue Jul 12, 2023
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6 participants
@lurch @jharris1993 @pdcastro @dtischler @FloMiau @jellyfish-bot