Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition - Can't install Windows 7

This sucks.

I found my solution after about another 5 wasted hours of my life.

I stumbled upon this "fix" on MS's technet blog

I saw a comment:

I had this error on RTM with the combination of Intel 310SSD and Kingston DataTraveler Elite 3.0 USB stick.

Could it be? This particular USB stick being the issue? (I have 3 of these). I tried it on another. Same issue. Took another generic 4GB staples usb from like 5 years ago... worked fine.

Kingston. You suck. I don't know why, but you do.

Side note: Put Ubuntu on the USB. Booted/installed just fine on the Kingston.

This is the easiest solution that I found:

1. Remove all partitions on the drive (no need to launch diskpart, you can just use the partition selection screen)
2. Unplug the USB drive.
3. Click Next. You will get:
   Windows is unable to install to the selected location. Error: 0x80300001.
4. Replug the USB drive.
5. Click Refresh.
6. Click Next.

Voila!

Another way, download e.g. a Ubuntu Desktop install image put it on a USB-drive and boot it.

Then find "gparted" and try to use it for partitioning the drive.

That might give an initial partition table and partition, which may help in getting things going.

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Alternative with Ubuntu;

Open a terminal with CTRL+Alt+T (works in at least 13.10 and 14.04).

$ lsblk 

should display a list of all attached disks and their partitions. USB-stuff might not appear if you have unmounted it/them (turns off power). Alternatively use gparted above and find the /dev/sdx -similar-looking name of the disk. then do

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=512 count=1

which will WIPE the first block (increase count for more) of the disk, which should be the partition table.
double checked the commands ;-)