Secure boot, case study

Hi, Newbie here, first post ! Thanks for having me.
I have a story to tell, which might interest a few. Bit of a cautionary tale really, anyway, here goes..
A few days ago I thought I would treat myself to a new laptop . After all Xmas is almost upon us and I had this vague notion of putting together a dual boot system with a view to having a play with Linux , which I have never had the time to do before.
So off I goes, purchases a nice Samsung 350 i5 , just the job ! I had heard bad reports of Windows 8 but actually it is pretty slick, especially if you install " classic shell ". Gives you back the start button and traditional functions, including the shut down in the right place. Not knocking the tile screen, just a bit too' tablet' for a laptop, or desk top .
Anyway so far , so good. Then I read in Micro Mart that Zorin 6.1 is a good option as an introduction to Linux.
OK, well I download, burn iso and in a little while , I am looking at a disc boot of Zorin. Very nice methinks I'll have some of this. Well admittedly I did have a bit of head scratching to do but I managed to switch off secure boot and created the new partition and booted up into my nice new shiny Zorin installation. Wow ! Custom menu options and all. Better check Windows.... Gone..... oh no, what had I done ! My new laptop. Doh.
Tuns out I should have done my research, Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
So there I was, doing some real heavy learning. I learnt all about the master boot record. All about Grub and Grub2. Thank the lord for the internet.
So you have to restore the mbr on disc0. I used, what someone recommended . " The Ultimate Boot CD "
Really good. I removed the Zorin installation , Grub partition as well, from within Zorin live, using the partition tool.
I then used UBoot CD to boot up and used a tool to fix the MBR. The latest version has options all the way up to windows seven which in my case worked. Back to the bios and a few tweeks later my computer booted up in recovery mode, now back to normal but unfortunately no Zorin and no dual boot, bummer. At least a recovery was possible in my case but I would advise caution to anyone with a new computer who wants to play about.
As I see it , my only options now are to fit a second hard drive or replace the existing one for the time being so I can keep my Win8 intact on the supplied drive. Maybe boot from USB stick ?
Anybody got any ideas. Is it possible to dual boot Win8 and Zorin ?
Hope the above is helpful.
Regards

I've never tried it with Windows 8, but I find a link . and it is very good
http://www.intowindows.com/dual-boot-windows-8-and-ubuntu/

Or maybe your problem is that your GRUB configuration includes a BIOS/legacy-style boot entry for Windows, but your system is booting in EFI mode. There are a number of ways to fix this. One is to create your own custom Windows boot entry for GRUB in /etc/grub.d/40_custom. Something like this might work:

Code:

menuentry "Windows 7" {
    insmod part_gpt
    insmod chain
    set root='(hd0,gpt7)'
    chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

After creating that entry, type sudo update-grub to transfer it to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file. I can't guarantee that this will work, though; what works for one installation doesn't always work for another.

Another approach is to install another boot manager, such as rEFInd or gummiboot. When installed as a primary boot manager, these tools will enable you to select Windows vs. GRUB, and you'll then use GRUB to select your kernel. Alternatively, either can boot a Linux kernel (version 3.3.0 or later) directly, bypassing GRUB entirely. Doing this optimally requires some reconfiguration.

Thanks for your help folks.
This looks interesting.