12.04 upgrade problem

[Jim Smith]

Avi Greenbury wrote:
>
> Anyway! On to your actual question!
>
> You'll find that you can enter your home directory either from
> a user with the privilege to do so (which, generally is root or any
> other user using sudo) or one with the same user ID (UID) as your old
> user. I can give you more direct instructions on what to do here if
> you let me know what it is you're trying to do next.
>
>
> Are you interested in restoring the 11.10/12.04 install? If so, could
> you answer a few questions:
>
> * What method did you use to upgrade? Probably do-release-upgrade,
>   update manager or synaptic, but there's a couple of other ways.
> * How far did it get? Did it look like it all worked, but then just
>   not work the next time you tried to boot?
> * What does it do when it fails to boot? How far does it get, do you
>   get any messages (errors or otherwise)?
>
>
> If not, it may be easiest to simply run the installer on that CD and
> tell it to use your current /home as the 'new' /home but not format
> it. This will preserve the content of your home directory (so all your
> files and custom configuration for applications) but not any system
> configuration, and you'll only have the default set of applications
> installed.
>   
1. I used Update Mangler from a terminal as: gksu "update-manager -d"

2 and 3.. It appeared to finish the install, but would not finish 
booting. Would stop after the line "Starting TiMIDIty......"

Is that option available to control the format by directories? I was 
just going to either format all as 90% of my files are backed up on an 
outboard hard drive, or just format none and install over the last install.
Would it be easier to use the alternate install CD? Just d/led it.
Is it possible while running from the CD to obtain root privileges so I 
can just copy all of my "home/jim" directory to the external HD?

Thanks

JIm