If the computer is compatible with Windows 7 and if the Windows 8 drivers work with Windows 7, or you can get Windows 7 drivers for this model from HP, a Windows 7 installation should be just a walk in the park. The HP website shows only Windows 8 drivers for your model.
According to bios update available for you model it supports windows 7 have you tried running slicdump toolkit to see if slic 2.1 is still in bios ?
I have not. Thanks for that! I will look into it. So would inserting the Windows 7 CD and erasing all of the Windows 8 partitions be a bad idea?
Another point if you have option to make recovery dvd's do that first, so you can put laptop back to factory setting in case you may want to sell it on at later date if your upgrading.
Every time I insert the CD or the USB, it complains that a file is corrupt and won't boot the Windows 7 media.
Download the .iso file again and verify the integrity of the download; burn it to a disk at slowest speed. For the USB go through your same process in creating the USB with the newly downloaded and verified .iso.
So I enabled legacy mode and it booted the CD, but when I tried to install Windows 7 on the Windows 8 partition, it said that it couldn't install 7 because the partition was gpt. I read to remove all of the partitions, so I did and 7 installed successfully. But when I tried to install Daz Loader 2.1.7, the computer rebooted and gave me a disk read error. Any solution to this? Also none of my drivers will install, so I'm kind of stuck there as well. HP doesn't provide drivers for Windows 7 on the dv7255dx model.
Well TONPumper, I never did get a reply when I did say if you have the option to make recovery dvd's or make a backup image of your drive. To late now or if you did have the option at least reply so it may help other members
Yeah, the backup would have been good. I just didn't know if Acronis would be able to handle Windows 8. But I don't think I'm in too much trouble. I just have to find the drivers by myself and I should be good to go.
I wasn't talking about 3rd party imaging tools most HP machines I have worked on come with recovery partition and the option to make recovery DVD's if hard drive fails then then your recovery partition is useless. Also since you mentioned it the latest acronis trueimage does handle windows 8.