The original HDD on my Sony VAIO still works, but has a damaged sector 0 and I was constantly prompted to replace the HDD because of the imminent failure.

I created recovery discs as instructed, used a USB external HDD for complete back up (including Windows image back up).

After installing the SSHD and using recovery discs to upload Windows and boot, I am getting the Windows welcome screen. Right after that, I'm getting the following message:

Windows couldn't complete the installation.
To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation.

I have tried repeating the process many times all kinds of different ways and I still receive the same message.

Also, when I tried to change to partitioning as the other option offered, I get the message:

Windows Setup could not configure Windows to run on this computer's hardware.

All troubleshooting for hardware and PCU came out solid. I tried to load the image back up from the external drive, but can't load the driver. The computer doesn't see it. Does anyone have a clue or has encountered something similar?