Installing Win7 on a DV7-7373CA

Hello, I'm looking for a laptop to replace my old Gateway P-79 and I'm very much interested in the DV7-7373CA with the i7-3630QM and GT650m.
However, since the laptop comes with Win8, I heard that you cannot downgrade to Win7 because of a "MBR with GPT disks" - I don't rally know what that means.
So my question is this, since the laptop comes with 2x1TB HDDs which have the mentioned protection, is it possible to put in my Intel 320 SDD (that I currently have) in the new laptop and run a fresh installation of Win7 on the DV7?

My dilemma is whether the protection comes from the motherboard (BIOS) or HDDs.

Thanks

 

It should be doable as this model comes with Windows 7 drivers from HP, it's a good thing as lately HP had stop issuing Windows 7 drivers on newer models so that's one less thing to worry about. The "MBR with GPT disks" issue mainly arises when you try to install Windows in Legacy BIOS mode over the newer UEFI mode adopted by most Windows 8 systems, UEFI uses GPT disk partitions compared to the Legacy MBR disk partitions. Typically they don't work hand in hand so you will need to choose one format over the other.

To keep things simple you should try to switch to the Legacy format allowing you to install Windows 7 on your DV7, you will also need to disable Secure Booting in the BIOS which can stop the downgrade process too. I think I covered a similar post before which you can have a read here.