[DC LoCo] Upgrading to 10.04 using alternate cd has me hung at bootup with LUKS

[Lucas Moten]

I have a laptop that I previously setup with 9.10 encrypted with LUKS that
I'm now attempting to upgrade.

I think I may have allowed the upgrade to replace a file or package that I
shouldn't have (or vice versa).  After the installation, it went to reboot,
and I get the dark purple background splash screen with the white and orange
lights that cycle, but never does it show me the text to prompt for my
password to unlock the device.  Assuming that it is prompting and just
waiting for me to enter it, I tried putting in my password, but after typing
only part of it, the lights stop changing and it is pretty much stuck there.

Sometimes I get it to dump out to initramfs, so I think it's seeing my
password as failed.

If I can get back to initramfs, what are some things I can do?

I would like to 1) be able to manually unlock the disk, 2) mount it, and if
possible boot up, or at least be able to view files in the shell.  I have
some notes of the files that it was stumbling on during the upgrade, but my
lack of common sense didn't consider the fact that I need to successfully
login to read those files as I saved them to my desktop!

Is there a way I can view boot logs to see what its doing or tried to do?

Is there any way I can set boot options, say, using a live or alternate cd
disk, to boot the first hard drive which would give me a text only startup
instead of the splash screen?

Anything else anyone can throw at me for ideas would be helpful. - Direct
responses or links to resources addressing these issues are most
appreciated.

Thankfully, I don't have any critically important files on the laptop, so
worst case scenario is that I just set it up fresh.  My main system is 8.04,
but I have no plans to upgrade it until I get another drive to back stuff up
on!

-Lucas
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