I'd like to install Ubuntu 10.04 on a brand new Dell vostro v130. Dell notebooks usually come with a recovery partition, which allows you to restore the original Windows configuration of the notebook.
The question is: will installing grub in the master boot record overwrite the address of this partition, making it useless?
Installing grub to the mbr will not affect the partition table, so the recovery partition will remain intact and an entry for the recovery partition will be automatically added to the grub menu so that you can boot from it if needed.
No it shouldn't. The MBR should have nothing to do with access to partitions.
If the Win7 partition is occupying the entire hard disk minus the recovery partition, then delete that partition and create a smaller Windows (NTFS) partition say of 40 GB. In the remaining space create partitions for Linux. Run the restore option to install Win 7 on the new Win7 partition. And, then run Ubuntu installation on the other partitions. Grub will automatically add entries for Windows 7 and the recovery partition.
I have had lot problem with the Grub MBR and the Recovery Software interference. This is problem mostly occurs when you try to install Ubuntu to a logical partition.
http://agnipulse.com/2010/08/dell-inspiron-ubuntu-woes/