How to safely partition before installation?

You should have recieved windows disks, or a method of creating windows disks with your device. This will allow you to restore windows in the event that it dies, or if your hard-drive has a failure. This should be the case irrespective of whether you wish to install ubuntu or not.

If not, (even if you don't plan to install ubuntu), I suggest you contact your retailer to ask for how to generate windows recovery disks, so that you can recover your computer if windows has a problem.

If you do plan to install ubuntu, you can use this to recover your original installation.

As for your data, you should *always* back this up somwhere that is independant of your main computer. If you don't you will regret it the day you lose all you data :)

Finally, you can resize partitions within windows:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoResizeWindowsPartitions

Windows7 can resize its own partition. Make sure your backups are up to date in case of catastrophe. You can then install ubuntu to the unpartitioned space

Usually with a netbook you need to buy a USB stick and set it up as a bootable, factory restore USB. There should be info in the instructions that came with the computer e.g. required USB size and how to create the backup.

I recommend you do this before installing Ubuntu or messing with the partitions. Note a factory restore is only useful in an absolute disaster as it doesn't retain any of your personal settings or data. But it's a good idea to have one.

Also check how many primary partitions your computer has already: sudo fdisk -l (lower case L). HP computers seem to come with 4 already used lately. If this is the case, you'll have to delete one to install Ubuntu side by side.

So I can't just resize one to make room for a 5th partition? Hmmm...Well I'm not sure if I even can delete any of them. They're the C: disk, the Recovery Tools, one called system, and one called HP tools on this new computer. The only one that seems like it could be deleted is HP tools, but I don't wanna take any chances!
Would it be better to just maybe get an external hard drive and devote some of it's space to Linux? How would that work out? Would I have to keep it plugged in to one computer I want to use Linux with?

yes, you can install it to an external HDD.

I would recommend disconnecting the internal HDD during the install, to ensure that you do not modify the bootloader on the internal drive.

http://en.golb.be/installing-ubuntu-9-10-on-an-external-usb-hard-drive/

Oh, if you are on a netbook, disconnecting the internal drive could be tricky :-) You might be able to disable the internal disk temporarily from the BIOS.

@mycae
in north america, computers come with software preinstalled and are not shipped with a recovery disk. a recovery disk is a special order from the manufacturer that requires payment. all that a recovery disk does is provide tools to fix problems and if needed, restore the computer to factory condition. all software and files installed/created by the user are erased.

@jordan
back up your system before install ubuntu. i'm glad i did. the first time i install ubuntu, it didn't work properly and i had to reinstall my computer from a backup.

paragon backup is a pretty good program, but it is kinda of hard to use the first and second and third time. you can get it free from downloads.com. be sure to create a paragon recovery disk first. this will allow you to restore your system from the backup in case windoze becomes completely kaput.

you can, as you mentioned, delete the HP partition, usually it comes with ad sponsored kaka and useless software, like ones that force you to order supplies from a centralized HP warehouse. if you do need them later on, you can reinstall them from the backup.

Alright, well thanks for all the information everyone! Hopefully now I can take a more knowledgeable approach to this instead of just wildly downloading files and screwing up the computer haha.
Thanks!