Windows 7-64 Clean Install Failure

HP M6-1045dx running Win 7 64. Hard drive was replaced by 128 GB SSD a year ago.

I bought the Win 7 recovery disks from HP. The recovery failed. According to HP, their recovery disks do not work in machines where the original hard drive has been replaced by a smaller drive. I downloaded Win 7 ISO files at Digital River and used the Microsoft USB download tool to copy to a USB drive which was clean except for the Win 7 files.

When I tried to run Windows installation, I got an error message that driver devices were not loaded. That's the best I can remember. I moved the USB drive to a different port and like magic, the Windows installation ran, seemingly normally. However, when the system restarted, it took me back to the Windows installation screen. I ran thru the process again and this time ran a clean all command. Still same result.

Then I tried to run a clean command and upon restart, I booted to an error message, no bootmgr. Now stuck in that loop.

Any help is much appreciated.

You should be following the steps to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

If you have installation problems work through the steps for Overcoming Windows 7 Installation Failures - Windows 7 Help Forums .

The prompt for drivers during install almost always means a bad installer though in your case it might have been plugged into a USB3 port which has not Win7 support. You'll have a chance to create another installer in the steps. I would not skip any as they resolve 90% of installation failures.

When you boot into BIOS to reset to defaults, check for UEFI settings and set SATA controller to AHCI after reset, this time set the hard drive first to boot, trigger the stick to boot using the ESC key at boot. This may help prevent it from autostarting the install again. If not pull the stick out after first reboot.

Let us know how this goes.