BD, commiserations on your experience.
If I may hi-jack the thread in a good cause -
Folks,
The moral of the story is:
Always back up your data before attempting a system upgrade.
Of course, one should be regularly backing up important stuff, but an OS upgrade deserves one all of its own.
The SD recommended OS upgrade method? Buy a new HD (you might as well, the old one was too small anyway).
Remove old disk, put in new, then do a clean install of new OS. Now either insert old disk as a second drive, or better still, buy an external USB disk enclosure for it - that way you have all your original data available to transfer AND you have a painless backup AND you have an ongoing backup mechanism!
No charge, the advice is free (so you can't sue me
).
SD