Thanks that did indeed get me into the BIOS. However no matter what external boot device i try (bootable USB key, external DVD rom, etc.) i cannot get the unit to boot from them so i can reimage, it always defaults back to Win 8. Any ideas on how to get past this?

For transferring data between two computer's you need a specially designed Easy transfer cable. A regular USB cable might not be useful. You may refer to Microsoft article Here. One such example of Easy Transfer Cable for Windows 7 is Here. Hope this helps.

Everything seemed to go fine and after it said finished, the system rebooted and all I got was a black screen and a mouse cursor. Waited about 15 minutes and still nothing. I pressed the power button, after it shut down, pressed again, it said resuming windows.