Window's can't be configured after a system restore

I've just had to do a complete system recovery, (back to factory settings) on my computer using the recovery discs that I made when I first bought it. All went fine until the end when it said to restart the computer. I restarted and a message appeared saying that 'Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation.' What does this mean? I thought that the re-installation of Windows would be on the recovery disc. I have tried starting the whole thing over again but the end result was the same, Windows wouldn't re-install. Has anyone any suggestions? I'd be very grateful.

Solution 1:

Did you replace the hard drive?

Error: 'Windows Setup could not configure Windows to run on this computer hardware

If you replaced a standard hard drive that is not an advanced format drive with an Advanced Format (AF) drive, system recovery might not recognize the drive or partition - depending on the type and size of AF hard drive and when recovery discs were created (prior to Fall 2010). When this happens, changing the SATA Mode setting (AHCI, IDE, RAID) in BIOS setup to an alternate setting might work. If problems persist, it may be necessary to remove the AF drive as the main drive and replace with a standard hard drive using 512B-sectors (instead of AF 4KB sectors).

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