update from 12.10 to 13.10

[arelem3]

My daughter updated her Toshiba Satelite L750 laptop from 12.10 to 13.10 
yesterday and now has significant problems. Strange because I regularly 
update my machine with no issue.

We noticed that during the download process the terminal displayed err: 
and something about translation but a we could not stop the process in  
time so let the download continue. The download and install took 8 hours 
or so.

She dare not shut down the computer because the shutdown dialog displays 
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and is inoperable.
  Several Icons no longer appear in the sidebar.

She is very worried that if she manually shuts it off she may not be 
able to start it again.

She wants to update to 14.04LTS and I would like to ask what we should 
do to resolve the problems.
I've not come across this problem before so am in the dark.

Help much appreciated
Roger