Windows 7 and Hidden Partitions

• I am using a Toshiba Dynabook laptop and I finally decided to install Windows 7 on it. Toshiba laptop has two hidden partitions; one for recovery called HDDRECOVERY and the other one for booting, called TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME. Now when Windows 7 was installed it had created two more primary partitions, finishing up all the four primary partitions you can create. (In Windows 7 a small 100MB partition is created for system stuff). This makes you run out of all the primary partitions and you may not be able to install any other operating system like Ubuntu.
• Now, unless one of your primary partitions is an extended partitions you cannot create any more partitions in the disk. So, I had to remove the hidden HDDRECOVERY. You can copy contents of hidden partitions using an Ubuntu live cd. Using System->Administration->Disk Utility mount the hidden partition you want and you can copy it to wherever you want.
• On an extended partition you can create logical partitions and you can use this extended partition to install Ubuntu.

Cheers