i think missed to format the C drive, and simply clicked on install after i had selected the C drive. i also had a problem when i installed win 8 RTM (i dunno the version exactly, the one they were giving away for free) and had problems as the pc would stuck. i thought it was a bus in the RTM version. Now i that i have got original win 8, i will install it again via usb and see if there are any problems. i personally think installing win from USB is better than the DVD coz may be the DVD can miss some files as they wwere not written properly on the DVD from the iso image.
And when you say install from HD, do you mean to do it by creating a virtual DVD drive?