Comment 2 for bug 571470

it took some trial and error (yes, I'm a bit of a "noob") but I got my system back running and fixed the upgrade problem at the same time.
breakd down:
booted to a "live" cd and used cmd line (with sudo) in terminal window to mount my ext3 and change that volume to the root.

sudo mkdir /mnt/mydrive
sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/mydrive
sudo chroot /mnt/mydrive/
sudo update-initramfs -u -v

Upon attempt at "normal" re-boot still dropped to busy box.

next boot attempt chose "recovery" option from grub loader (had tried to boot to recovery prior to above steps w/o success)
this time the recovery boot option prompted for the 9.04 cd.
simply put, gave her what she wanted and rebooted. Grub now lists 9.04 and 8.10 is gone. selection boots normally. Thus solution found.

Sorry if I put this in the wrong area, looking back it may have been more of a forum thread discussion rather than a bug; save for the initial inability to upgrade from the alternate CD w/o a network.