12.04 update problem - software re "hardware" update

[rikona]

Running 12.04 LTS. Ran a somewhat overdue update with a large number
of items. At the end of the update, it said I needed to restart, which
I did. It also offered to do a 'hardware' update which I did not do at
that time. After the restart, it again offered to do a 'hardware'
update [HWE], which I did. Apparently this update allows me to get
more recent kernel updates if I continue to use 12.04, which sounded
like a good idea. During this hardware update I noticed that a VERY
large number of system changes were being made. Many, many things were
deleted, some new kernel related things were installed, and many new
or replacement things were installed.

Another restart, and it said it had to run in low graphics mode,
whatever that is, and I said okay. At this point, the CLI came up. I
tried starx, which failed miserably with many messages rapidly going
by, some complaining about video, and comments such as "no such file".
A reboot gave me the same thing again. 

So here I am at the CLI with no idea how to restore the functionality
I had previously. Since this was supposedly just a simple software
update, I did not do a system backup before hand - big mistake! What
do I need to do to figure out what the problem is and fix it? 

Thanks,

 rikona