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SQL Server
A family of Microsoft relational database management and analysis systems for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.
14,494 questions
First things first: what hardware do you have? If you have an ARM processor, beware that SQL Server does not support ARM. The rest of the answer assumes that you have a regular x64 processor.
My belief is that this is an error that occurs mainly in the situation when a user tried to install SQL Server and it failed with some error. The user might have tried some random cleanup and made renewed attempts. Because the cleanup was incomplete, Setup now fails with another error than it did originally.
I noticed your other posts where you said that you had made five attempts, so it seems to apply to you.
Here is a link to an article that can help you to clean up properly: https://www.sql-easy.com/learn/how-to-uninstall-sql-server/. I have not tried it myself, but I learnt about it from a user who was in a similar situation as yours, and who was able to install SQL Server successfully after following the article.
If you are on Windows 11, be sure to read the article Troubleshoot errors related to system disk sector size greater than 4 KB before you try again. It discusses a known issue where Windows 11 reports a disk-sector size that SQL Server chokes on. This could be the cause for your original failure. Check out this article, and if needed apply the workarounds it proposes.