Cannot install Windows 7 on HP Pavilion 360 from USB

Apologies. I thought I had read and followed the directions, but apparently not closely enough. In any case, my thanks for your patience. If this message ends that patience, I fully understand and will not bother you with this attempt any further.

Meanwhile, I have read the steps again and tried my best to understand them.

Step 1: Using Home Premium 64bit ISO purchased and downloaded from DiscountMountain with Product code and Product Key. I used ei.cfg on the ISO and got the message "ei.cfg removed."

Step 2: I made a bootable USB using Windows 7 USB-DVD Download Tool.

Steps 3 and 4 were skipped because there's nothing on the machine I give a shit about, including 8.1. If it's a brick, so be it.

Step 5: Created a Belarc profile for drivers and saved it to my desktop machine. Of course the audit is of the pre-installed 8.1.

Step 6 and 7: I believe I have the stuff I need.

Step 8: The HP boots, Windows loads files, screen asks for language information, Install Now screen appears. I select that and, whirr, whirr, the dreaded driver request screen appears and I'm stymied.

I tried these steps again with another ISO downloaded from Digital River with the same result.

Again, my apologies. Of course I'm missing something, probably something simple and obvious. But make no mistake: I do appreciate the smart help I've always gotten on this forum.

We don't give up, ever.

Work through these steps for Overcoming Windows 7 Installation Failures - Windows 7 Help Forums.

Instead of choosing Install Now choose from bottom left corner Repair My Computer and open the Command Line to clean the hard drive and format an Active partition from there.

If this fails report back the error and/or failure behavior and at which step.

Then proceed with the steps to try another installer but this time burn to DVD using the Download tool to compare.

Thanks Greg. Here's the story as of today.

Followed steps in "Windows 7 Installation Failure - Troubleshoot."

This BIOS does not offer SATA controller choices.

At first couldn't access Repair. Got message that I wasn't using the correct Windows version. Then tried creating an installation USB with Rufus that allowed me to select GPT partition. That enabled a new UEFI boot choice.
Then I was able reach the command line. Followed all commands in step 6, then attempted to install Win7, only to come up against the same driver-needed screen.

But I noticed something there. The screen that allows you to browse for drivers shows a drive labeled Boot x. I assumed that was my USB, but it isn't. It must be a recovery sector on C: that wasn't overwritten by CLEAN. That means even though the installation is running from the USB, the software does not recognize it or the files on it. Does that mean I need USB drivers in order to go forward?

Also, just to make it interesting: While the GPT partition installation made it possible to reach the command line once, since formatting C: I get a wrong-version error even though C: appears as a Win 7 drive.

This is evolving beyond challenge to the level of quest.

If you overwrote with Clean command then nothing remains on the drive that's readable. What you were seeing is the flash stick.

I've never seen the prompt for drivers NOT be a bad installer, but you can try to supply them anyway. You'll need the SATA controller driver: SATA Driver - Load in Windows 7 or Vista Setup

But I would first try an installation DVD. Use a fresh ISO with tool provided to burn it in tutorial.