Problems installing Windows 7 using Boot Camp

I have a brand new MBP Retina laptop (late 2013) with 256GB SSD. Today I tried to use Bootcamp Assistant to partition the SSD and install Windows 7 64 bit OS.
My first attempt was using a licensed Windows 7 64 bit installation DVD and my OWC external optical drive which is recognized in Finder:
I started Boot Camp Assistant, selected the boxes to download latest Windows Support Software from Apple and to Install Windows 7. I was asked to specify the size for the Windows partition and hit continue. The process was moving along, the computer restarted and then I got a black screen with a blinking white cursor (like a command line prompt) in the upper left corner of the screen and a message to press any key to reboot. Pressing any key did nothing.
As far as I could tell, the Support Software files that were on the USB drive did get installed prior to the first reboot of the system that happens after you allocate the size for the partition. After the first reboot I never got the Windows installer though, just the hanging black screen/cursor mentioned above.
I'm wondering if, after creating the partition and restarting, my computer can't see my external optical drive even though it does show up in Finder when booted to OSX because it was not reading the Win7 Install DVD at all.
While on the phone with Apple Senior Tech Support we rebooted several times holding down the Alt/Option key. The boot options were the OSX, Recovery, Windows, and EFI Boot. Choosing Windows resulted in the trackpad locking up and it just hung there. I ended up reverting the SSD back to a single partition for now.
After some discussion on the Apple forum I tried creating an ISO file from the Win7 64 bit DVD using ImgBurn software that I have installed on my Windows PC and ImgBurn indicated it had created a bootable ISO file. I copied the ISO file to the downloads folder on the MBP, plugged the empty USB drive into the MBP and tried Boot Camp Assistant again:
Choosing the appropriate option for use with an ISO file on a USB drive Boot Camp Assistant proceed to again create the partition, asked me to size it, and then it proceeded (over approximately an hour and a half) to work on copying the ISO file to the USB drive and downloaded the Support Software to the USB drive.
After the restart I got another black screen, cursor, and the messages, "No bootable device/drive found", "Press any key to reboot". Again pressing any key did not do anything. I reverted back to a single partition again, rebooted to OSX and gave up for the night.
Bottom line in either scenario is that I never get to the Windows installer screens to even attempt to install Windows on the new partition.
QUESTIONS:
I think in my situation it doesn't appear that ImgBurn created a bootable ISO file from my Win7 install DVD. The Apple Bootcamp Setup guide refers to downloading the ISO image from Microsoft but I couldn't find anything that I would be comfortable downloading.
I'd rather use my installation DVD for Windows but why isn't that process of reading the DVD from the external drive working after the restart?
Can the ISO file and Windows Support Software live on the same USB drive during installation and does the support software get installed automatically by boot camp assistant?
What am I doing wrong here? This shouldn't be this hard especially when I own a valid copy of Windows.
This is VERY frustrating. Any help or referrals to proper instruction is very much appreciated.

I was able to successfully complete the installation of Windows 7 Home Premium using Boot Camp. Turns out the problem was the Windows 7 ISO image I was initially trying to use. I called Microsoft tech support and they sent me a link (see below) from which I downloaded the Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit ISO image. After downloading the ISO image and restarting Boot Camp Assistant the process of Boot Camp preparing and transferring the ISO image and Windows Support software to the USB drive took about 45 minutes and then everything went smoothly from there. The only thing I encountered was when I was asked what drive to install Windows on I got a message that it couldn't install on the Boot Camp drive because it needed to be in NTFS format. I clicked on the format button and then the process continued. After Windows installed the Windows Support Software from Apple started to install automatically. So far it is working well.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/windo ws-7-home-premium-64bit-iso-download/709dcc12-d120-435d-91cd-52e1dd0f4c24

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