Add a warning message during installation in case the Windows partition is erased

Ask Fedora
1

Hello everyone,

I’m a brand-new Linux user, coming from Windows, and I’ve been on Fedora 43 KDE for two days now.

I’m finally starting to appreciate the system, but the beginning was extremely difficult. Wanting to get rid of Windows for good, I formatted my NVMe SSD system drive from Windows to Linux using the default installation—just as I would have done with Windows.

However, I ran into a major issue: all my other drives (SSDs and HDDs) were encrypted with BitLocker. I couldn’t find any recovery keys. These drives contained tons of extremely important files.

One option would have been to reformat and reinstall Windows just long enough to remove the BitLocker encryption from all my drives.

But when I logged into my Microsoft account, I found the recovery keys.

Unfortunately, I struggled to use the Linux tool Dislocker properly—it only helped me identify which drives matched the IDs.

In short, I spent an insane amount of time on this and was terrified of losing my data. I’m now making extensive backups.

I was really caught off guard by this issue; I’d never heard of it in the Linux world. So, I suggest adding a warning message when a user is about to format a Windows partition to install Linux: warn them to first check if their other drives aren’t encrypted with Windows’ protection tool (BitLocker), or they risk permanently losing their data.

I wanted to share this situation because now that it’s resolved, I can finally enjoy Fedora KDE, which is an excellent system.

2

I am glad you were able to recover your data, no matter how hard it was made by Microsoft.

However, I disagree on the need or desire for a warning.

The same could happen if the user had multiple drives that were encrypted using luks. The user needs to know what devices are encrypted and the means to unlock them.

Windows hides that from the average user with bitlocker (and win11 automatically enables bitlocker). Linux expects the user to know the passphrase for unlocking luks devices (and does not encrypt them without the user enabling it).

The only significant difference is one is plainly out in the open (luks) for the user to be aware of and requires user action for unlocking. While the other is hidden from casual observation (bitlocker) and the os automatically unlocks the device when booting (or rather when the user logs in).

Two different paradigms with one fully open to user observation and management while the other is hidden within the OS.

I don’t believe it is up to the linux world to attempt to inform users how to avoid problems caused by another os and how it handles its devices. There are way too many users and way too many instances of how things can go wrong. Identifying all possible user errors that needed to be anticipated would be – well – literally impossible.

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