Downgrading Windows 8 to 7 is getting harder every day.

[hobbit709]

4. Lenovos aren't any better

I had one model where I couldn't change it to legacy BIOS at all-no such option. Was able to trick it by using an external DVD drive to boot and install. It would not boot from the internal drive on any other OS.
Then I couldn't get it to install the wifi driver for a piece of crap Broadcom adapter-Lenovo actually listed 8 different drivers on the website, NONE of them worked.
I put Linux Mint 13 on it-all the hardware worked and customer is quite happy.

And you're right about Toshiba and Vista. I had one that the customer wanted downgraded to XP. Same problem with Broadcom-they don't want to give you any help at all. Finally by changing search terms online, I got a link to a Toshiba-Europe site that had ALL the XP drivers listed, even for US models. Toshiba-US would not list any drivers for XP on that model even though 6 months earlier, before Vista came out the exact same model was sold with XP.

As far as hidden partitions go, my Acronis Disk Director gets rid of them no problem.