This is weird, but to run Linux on a W8 machine you can use the beta of W10 to delete the partitions (and hidden elements of BitLocker). Once W10 does this stop the W10 install and then install what you want. One of my very close friends did this on an HP 820g1 laptop and I got to see it done.
Another thing i learned is to buy lenovo, hp, ibm or dell if you want to put linux on laptop. I went from acer to lenovo