Windows 7 Lenovo G560 / win7 installation problem: windows setup cannot configure win7 on - hardware

[AutomationDnD]

I am truly hoping this is a very fundamental kind of problem.

I do not understand why this is happening. I have installed windows 7 on many of these Lenovo G560's. They are standard from the factory. I had JUST setup this one particular laptop myself a couple months ago. Now the customer got "the problem" and upon attempting to wipe and reinstall win7 (the exact same OS/flavor, on the exact same hardware) now I receive the "error" saying windows setup cannot configure windows on this hardware.

it's like it gets most of the way thru the basic install, and the harddrive has all the basic files on it. But setup just cannot continue.

Why is this happening?
I Know all about new hard drives, the 4k-thing, that has nothing to do with this, unless some virus is causing a "hardware" problem. Or maybe it is a bios issue? bios corruption? I can't even reinstall / update bios unless windows is on it. and now I can't finish the win7 install.

Anyone run into this type of situation? I have one of these lenovo's as my own laptop here/now typing this on. I don't have a problem reinstalling win7 on it.

Does anyone have a good idea?

I have tried installing from DVD, from a usb stick, from the hard drive itself (copying files to a partition on the hard drive) no go.
I've tried changing BIOS settings for the hard drive from AHCI to "Compatible" (there are only these two options) and made no difference.

so my question is: WHY (or What) the change? what causes this on standard hardware that normally would work? and is there some simple fix? or is it probably broken hardware? (a bad drive controller?)

 

[AutomationDnD]

going to answer my own question: it looks like I had to open a command prompt while it was booting (shift F10) and then enter the directory /system32/oobe and run msoobe, and configure an admin user (with or without the password does not seem to matter). and just finish stepping through the basic setup required. I was able to get to a desktop and finish setting up the machine. but......... this still begs the question of WHY it happened in the first place. I just don't get it. if anybody sees this and feels like discussing it. I'd like to hear a good professional explanation of why this may happen.

As I mentioned above, I had already setup this machine once before. SUCCESSFULLY with a straightforward installation of win7. no problems at all. I had setup 13 of these laptops in fact. so I am just curious what this may have been that caused this. (virus?)