Does a system recovery in Windows 7 also erase a disk partition?

I have a HP laptop with Windows 7 I want to format. There is a C drive (main hard disk), and a D drive (recovery drive). Both came pre-installed. I am too lazy to pass my music and movie files to dvds or another computer... thus, I want to create a disk partition (E drive) to keep them apart. My question is, once I do a system recovery (using the Windows 7 tool), will the new E drive be erased as well? Thanks a lot for your help!