So you cant make a restore w8 cd from preinstalled software as with previous version of windows. so i had to use clonezilla to clone my w8 install incase for whatever silly reason i wanted w8 back. Next i had to change bios to legacy mode and legacy boot mode. Installed w7, used disk management to shrink volume to create another partition for linux mint. gparted was complaining there was left over gpt data in the mbr, so windows didnt really clean install :P so i had to use gpdisk (in lm software center) to zap the remaining gpt data out. Next, i had to /fixmbr and /fixboot to fix windows to boot again using recovery console from the install disk. Then i could finally install linux and grub on to sda so that grub would list windows in the boot list. LMAO, all because of efi! Yes, this all did take a few hours, but it was fun (sarcastically and actually really fun to fix)