10.04 upgrade issue

[Andy Curran]

A real 'newbie' here, please be gentle!!! I have tried to upgrade Ubuntu 
from 9.10 to 10.04.  During the installation some error messages (which 
I didn't write down) occurred but I just continued with the 
installation.  The last error message said that it could not install 
upgrades, and had aborted the installation!  It said a recovery would 
run (dkpg --configure -a).  When restarted the grub menu, which now 
includes 2.6.32.14, when relevant Linux option is selected displays 
error message, "error: unknown command 'recordfail'. Press any key to 
continue..."  Windows Vista and the Memory tests still work correctly 
but none of the linux options work. 
I tried to re-install using a live-cd session but this failed due to 
insufficient drivespace.  I do not know how to get out of this hole, 
please would someone help!!!
Many thanks

Andy C