Boot to black screen with blinking cursor, fresh install, not hdd

Kaen,
I've reviewed the thread and things just aren't meshing.

Disconnect that 1.5 TB drive that you hooked up internally.
Disconnect power from the drive. Disconnect data from the drive.

No connections to the drive.

This step is going to take some time but is necessary because of one of your replies.

I want you to perform a CLEAN ALL on the remaing 1 TB drive.

This will take a long time. You will be able to watch a couple of sporting events during the time.

After the clean all make a CLEAN INSTALL.
Use this tutorial: Clean Install Windows 7

I want you to use the System Repair Disc that you made to run CLEAN ALL.

CLEAN A DISK USING A SYSTEM REPAIR DISC

USING YOUR SYSTEM REPAIR DISC

Insert Win 7 SYSTEM REPAIR DISC into the optical reader.

Shutdown your computer.
Power up your computer.

A dialog window will appear:
Select your Language Preference | NEXT button

Select desired operating system if more than 1 shown |
Use recovery tools... Radio button | NEXT button

Select the Command Prompt option



Use DiskPart ----{type commands, follow each by hitting ENTER}
Type DISKPART ------{starts DiskPart; command prompt changes to DISKPART> }
Enter following DISKPART commands:
List disk ----------{list number assigned by DiskPart to the drives;
-------------------- note the numeral assigned to your UFD/SSD/HDD}
select disk 1 ------{the numeral 1 will be used in this example}
detail disk --------{info will help verify that you’ve selected the desired disk}
clean all ----------{write zeroes to all bytes of selected disk; depending upon
-------------------- capacity and device speed, this can take awhile.
-------------------- Any bad sectors will be so marked and avoided.
-------------------- Wait for the DiskPart prompt to appear again.
-------------------- The DiskPart> prompt will eventually appear.
exit ---------------------{exit DISKPART and return to the command-shell prompt}
exit ---------------------{exit the command shell }


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NOTE:
You may need to tell your computer to boot from the optical drive.
Power Up your computer.
Immediately start hitting the F12 key
Choose CD/DVD from the menu

If your computer doesn’t offer this capability, try tapping the F2 key to get to the BIOS to change the boot order.

Greg, you do your thing. I guarantee you that i know what I'm doing.

Kaen,
Glad to hear you found a solution..
Karl