re: Exchanging Windows 8 for Windows 7

You may be burning the disk incorrectly- is it a legitimate .iso of Win7 from somewhere reputable?
Also, do you know what the BIOS is and how to enter it (f10 right after you boot up, more than likely for you)?



Take us through what happens when you reboot. Give us all the error messages and what not.

Also, I seem to remember this being your laptop that you don't have an OS disc for. Are you aware that these are made cheaply available from the manufacturer? I get that you may not like win8 (and cannot necessarily blame you), but it may be your easiest fix with the least amount of learning/tinkering. And lastly, most hp laptops build a recovery partition into them. Barring a hard disk failure, just like entering into the bios, instead of tapping 'f10' try tapping 'f11' and see if you get a 'windows is loading files' message.

Check this link out for more win8 recovery options; it may point out one small thing you are missing.