Vaio pcg-61a-14l Cannot re-format Windows 7

My sister gave me this laptop and it had a lot of junk on it. It was running the os just fine but was slow, So I decided to re-format it. It goes almost all the way through the install and then reboots and starts over. I thought my copy may have been bad, so I borrowed another one and had the same issue. anybody got a clue what I should do?
Thank you in advance

 

Sounds like a bad HDD....did you try a different HDD??

 

Thank you for the reply. I ran a program called hd52 which scanned the WD drive for errors and can regenerate if found bad...there were no errors. I tried to run seagate seatools and it couldn't find the hd...maybe because it was a western digital????

 

WD against SG both will have same problem or no real winner here. If it isn't the HDD problem then next would be your hardware failure causing the reboot? How old is that laptop and what O/S did it come with?

 

Make sure there is no data on the disk that you want to keep!!! you're about to erase everything to zeros, including the boot sectors.

Takes about 20 Mins. per 100GB. To be safe, remove any other drives other that the one you want to install to.

When installing Windows 7, at the select Language form: Call Command Prompt [ Shift ]+[ F10 ]

Type/Enter the following commands:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK n (n = number of the target disk to bring into focus to operate on)
CLEAN ALL
EXIT
EXIT

-----> continue installing windows...

 

Stormjumper, The laptop seemed to be operating just fine with the OE Windows 7 OS. I just wanted to do a clean reformat. I also did notice that the #8 key did not work. Does that mean a bad keyboard?

RCB, thanks for your reply...I will give it a try

 

One other thing, in the BIOS, if you can adjust the drive in boot order make sure the drive is first in the list.

Blow the keyboard with compressed air, something could be lodged... formerly a females computer? could be a piece of a fingernail.

 

It's possible you got a bad keyboard but if blowing or vacuming out stuff from under the keyboard still has problem keys then you might have to get a USB keyboard for the test and see if the keys responds. If they all work then the keyboard might be in need of a replacement. Sometimes bad or sticky keys can have a adverse effect without showing the problem. But disable and use USB keyboard and see if the problem doesn't persist. It would seem like that laptop has been used alot and maybe the hardware is starting to show it's usage age??

 

Update on keyboard...I removed the #8 key and it is very clean under it and looks like there is no damage. I uninstalled the keyboard in device mgr and rebooted with same results. I plugged in a usb keyboard and all keys work. I guess it is a bad keyboard???