Oh My GOD!

I just tried to install Gentoo 2006.1 on my pc (didn't work) on the partition /dev/sda3/

First it wouldn't install because the idiotic installer couldn't connect to the snapshot mirror I JUST CONNECTED TO DURING THE CONFIG. Then the thing wouldn't install because it couldn't unpack the snapshot in the /mnt dir it selected (More smartness). Then it wouldn't install because of some stupid disk error.

I deleted the sda3 to make a fresh one and it renamed it sda2 and the old sda2 was bumped to sda3 (Didn't know that was possible) and after it failed to install the last time I just said fsck it and rebooted back into Vector and lo and behold... EVERY PARTITION BEYOND SDA1 WAS GONE!

Very disappointed in the half-assed attempt at an installer.

WTF?

Admitidly, I did have sda configured a little weird (sda1 sda3 sda2 sda5 sda6), but that shouldn't result in a complete wipe!

I want my 2 hours back. And my files.

Stay far away from Gentoo and all its detestable enormities

I guess you were using the GUI installer.
Can't say you weren't warned.

I've installed Gentoo several times and never had any issues with the partitioning tool. Anyway, the minimal install seems to be a lot better than the GUI install, so thats the one I always use.

Warned? Where? I don't remember seeing anything in the manuals on the gentoo site warning people not to use the graphical install.

Anyway... After using testdisk I managed to recover my lost partitions so all is well now.

Still, that installer is a big piece of buggy junk.

Pays to investigate first. Here and here are a couple of threads I had a say in on Gentoo forums.
I've also replied here on LQ.

Its been mentioned on various online sources including here at LQ that the GUI installer is buggy and not very reliable. I remember running the live cd and the installer wanted to get rid of all my paritions because it did not recognize the BSD and Solaris partitions I had on the system. Using tools like fdisk from the minimal cd and manage to install Gentoo without any problems.

It really helps if you do a bit of research into potential problems before installing a distro.

True but gentoo could be honest and put a big fat warning in the docs.After all of all things you'd expect the default installer to work.

I think they do tell you when the GUI installer starts saying that its VERY EXPERIMENTAL. I have not used their livecd in a long time, just use something like SLAX or any other livecd you want and use that to install.