Sometimes, after you do something to the drive you need to refresh the
partition windows for the drive to be re-read. There may still be
something in the system
stopping the process, I just don't have a lot of experience with
laptops. But when you format the drive, you are just setting up one
partition for Windows 7?
While you are on the partition window, you might try hitting Shift+F10 to get a command window. Then type Diskpart and when it starts, type:
list disk
select disk 0 <-- this assumes you only have one drive
detail disk
You should now see the partitions set up and the type of drive on the
far right. If it says GPT, let us know. The partitions should be set
as you expect, and if not you might want to go ahead and clean (see
below) the drive or try again. Cleaning the drive will remove all data and partitions make sure you are looking at the correct drive...
If you are sure you have removed all the prior partitions and have nothing left to save, you can clean the drive by typing:
clean
When you are finished with Diskpart type Exit, Exit to get back to the partitions page. Refresh the window and try again.
