Installing Windows 7 from a USB device to HDD.

Likely a bad installer. Create a new one using only Option One from UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows

Boot it as a UEFI device.

What are the other settings choices for Legacy besides Enabled? Try without Fast Boot. What settings are on Advanced tab? What Reset to Default settings are there?

Read your Manual about RAID Ready and how that applies. Is this a MSata drive with SSD caching chip. It may need to be disabled to reinstall. We have a tutorial.

You can also try legacy install deleting all partitions.

I have created as a UEFI twice now with Rufus and gotten the same result. I have one more USB that I left at work, created with Rufus on a different machine and different Flash Drive, that I can try again. I will also try to turn off the Legacy support and boot as UEFI only.

Lastly, I will try to boot with MBR and Legacy mode and if that doesn't work...... clean disk.

To be honest with you, if Microsoft is going to pull this crap I'm thinking about just buying an awesome NEW PC now and living with that for the next 5 or so years. Then I can reevaluate whether I want to boycott Microsoft all together. I've also heard that Ubuntu and other Linux systems have come a long way since I last used one, I might even try that.

Dell has a Desktop (yes, I'm old fashioned) that looks to fit the bill. Do you have an opinion on this PC?
XPS 8700 Performance Desktop | Dell

In other words, I'm close to throwing in the white flag. I was just trying to utilize an unused PC, but time = money.

Dell does custom installs with Windows

HP does have a BIOS update, but I checked and I do have it.

I would like to learn this stuff so here is my latest finding. The results from my Diskpart were incredibly slow, but did finally come in. It does interface with the C drive. See screen shot below. Basic stuff: A single disk can have multiple partitions, what then is a volume? Is that just a property of a partition, which has a more user friendly property called label? That is where I get confused. My C:\ drive is an NFTF Partition listed as BOOT and GPT. Are all of these settings correct or should c:\ be Fat32?

What is it you want to do? If a trial Win 7 install with 8 then shrink its partition in Disk mgmt. boot into BIOS SETUP to disable Secure Boot, enable Legacy or CSM, boot Win7 disk as UEFI device to install to partition made.

If get rid of Ate then run Clean command on disk, boot DVD as UEFI device with BIOS changes above.

If these fail report back all available Bios Settings for UEFI, CSM, Legacy. Or boot as Legacy DVD to install after Cleaning Disk and running additional Convert MBR command with BIOS set Legacy.

what I would like to do is blow away windows 8 and have windows 7 only.

if I do a clean disk option on c drive how would I know that all of the drivers match what i have now? also, i was told that burning a dvd from a downloaded iso is not the way to go... can I do it with the USB I created?

DVD is actually easier as you dont need to use Yumi to edit the USB for a UEFI install. Use Steps 1 and 2 of Clean Reinstall tutorial below. If you stick with those same steps then you'll get and keep a perfect install for as long as you do.

This is not XP, Win7 is driver complete in the installer and via Windows Update. Read what works best in the Reinstall tutorial under picture below.

I was just about to ask about booting Win7 ISO from a usb stick when I saw this thread.

I used Rufus to set up my Sandisk USB and it worked perfectly the very first time, but a few days later I picked up a nasty adware/spyware/whateverware and decided to reinstall again. Now for some reason it won't boot from the USB anymore. I repeated the process all over with Rufus again and it still ignores the USB stick. I can only boot from the Win7 disk (after setting the boot priority order).

So my question is, how do I force it to boot from the USB, in case I ever have a problem with the Win7 disk? As it stands, I can only activate the Windows setup file on the USB and not have the format option for a clean install.

90% of failure to boot media is a user failure.

If it won't boot then try writing it again after wipiing the stick with Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

If that fails try another stick.

Set HD first to boot, trigger stick from one-time BIOS Boot Menu key.