Help with Gutsy Upgrade

[Rick Knight]

Ubuntu developers. I know this is not the place for the usual requests 
for help with Ubuntu, but I don't know where else to look. I've posted 
to the Ubuntu-users list, the Ubuntu and Kubuntu forums and I've be 
visited both #ubuntu and #kubuntu on IRC. I've even added my comment to 
a Launchpad bug report, #190588. I've gotten several suggestions to fix 
my problem, but so far none of them have made a difference. I've also 
tried to post to ubuntu-devel, but the moderator refused the post and 
recommended I post here instead.

About 2 weeks ago I tried to upgrade my PC using the instructions found 
here http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/7.10-release.php. The upgrade 
froze at Installing packages 2%. After a couple of hours I stopped the 
upgrade process and tried again. This time the upgrade finished 
successfully. I rebooted the PC expecting to get a new Gutsy desktop, 
but instead got the Busy Box initramfs prompt and this message...

Check root= bootarg cat /proc/cmdline or missing modules, devices: cat 
/proc/modules ls /dev

ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/(my boot disk uuid) does not exist. Dropping to 
a shell.

All modules seem to be present and loaded but "ls /dev/disk/by-uuid" 
shows I have no hard drives (I actually have 2 hard drives, both EIDE 
devices, not SATA).

I can boot using the prior Feisty 2.6.20-16-generic kernel and am able 
to trouble shoot using the older kernel. As I said above, I have tried 
several suggestions to fix this problem, but so far none have had any 
effect.

I've tried re-installing the 2.6.22-14-generic kernel.
I've tried modifying initramfs.
I've re-installed and updated GRUB.
I've modified GRUB's menu.lst to use /dev/sd and /dev/hd drive identifiers.
I've tried to re-run the upgrade, both form the internet and from the 
alternate CD, but both methods say my system is up to date and can't be 
upgraded.

I don't know if this may be important information, but when I upgraded 
from Dapper to Feisty my system refused to recognize the new /dev/sd 
drive identifiers and I had to modify GRUB and /etc/fstab to use /dev/hd 
instead, but that didn't work this time.

While this may not be a common problem with the Feisty / Gutsy upgrade, 
a Google search shows the several are have the same or similar upgrade 
errors.

Can someone here please give me some suggestions to fix this problem?

Thanks,
Rick Knight