Upgrade fails: Vista to Win7 on T61p

[hellosailor]

I'm running Vista/32 Ultimate fully patched on a T61p, and I know some of them were sold with Win7 on them. I have the Win7 drivers downloaded figuring something will prompt me to supply or use them.

I ran the upgrade advisor, it said no problem. I started the Win7 upgrade (also Ultimate) and it said no problem, go chill. And about three hours later it said the upgrade could not be done on this hardware (this computer) so it was going to politely revert my ssytem to Vista, that I should go online and check the upgrade advisor to find out more.

Except of course, the upgrade advisor says there is no problem. Catch-22.

So what am I missing here? A driver issue? An undocumented custom step during the update? Anyone got a clue? Done this before?

[GomJabbar]

Possibly you don't have enough hard disk free space for the install to complete.

[billp117]

Consider a custom installation...a clean installation should work fine.

[hellosailor]

Guys, guys, thanks but please focus.

I've got gobs of free space, I just upgraded the hd to make sure of that. AND THE UPGRADE ADVISOR WOULD HAVE COMPLAINED IN ADVANCE IF IT WAS THAT SIMPLE.

A clean install is also out, I've been using computers for a long time and it would take about four days, if I had access to all the source media for raw installations, which is not with me right now.

So, come in out of right field and let's try to focus.

I tried a second time after removing a number of apps that the advisor said probbaly wouldn't work and would need to be reinstalled afterwards. It did NOT say they would stop an upgrade, just that they would need to be reinstalled.

What's left is a batch of bogus messages. The advisor said:

" Upgrading Windows will affect the following devices and/or programs:

These devices might not work properly after the upgrade. Before upgrading, we recommend updating the drivers for these devices. Cancel the upgrade, open Control Panel and search for "update device drivers", or go to the device manufacturer's website to search for updated drivers.
Mobile devices: HTC USB Sync [Note, not present, never installed, never an HTC device here.]
Network adapters: Microsoft Windows Mobile Remote Adapter [Note, not present, never installed]

These programs might not work properly after the upgrade. We recommend uninstalling these programs before upgrading. Cancel the upgrade, open Control Panel, and search for "uninstall a program". (Note: Programs marked as * can be safely reinstalled after the upgrade.)
GoogleToolbar [Note, not present, uninstalled long ago, have just reinstalled and re-uninstalled fwiw]

Intel PROSet/Wireless * [was uninstalled]
ThinkPad EasyEject Utility [was uninstalled]
Presentation Director [was uninstalled]

So most of what it says will fail--has never been here and isn't here.

The upgrade gets into the fifth and final section, says it HAS installed Win7 and is starting to transfer files and data, when it aborts and says it can't install on this hardware, with no further reasons why.

So what do yu do when the upgrade advisor is taking drugs and fighting with imaginary friends?