Can't get desktop to start

[treeclimber]

Last night, I attempted to update my OS from 7.10 to 8.04, using Update Manager. It wasn't finished downloading files when I went to bed, so I set it aside to allow it to continue overnight. I woke up this morning and found out I had accidently unplugged it and it (a Dell 1505n laptop) had been running on battery and the battery had ran down. I plugged it in. It booted, I put in my user name and password, but then I couldn't get the desktop to open. All I can see is my cursor.:(

I would like to figure out what to do to get the desktop to open. Alternatively, I do have a live CD. If I have to re-install, I need to rescue some pictures on here. Are they in the lost+found folder? If so, how do I open it with the live CD so I can copy them to my flash drive? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Partyboi2]

Press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get to a terminal
then

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

[treeclimber]

Thanks for answering. I could only open the desktop by using failsafe gnome. When I used it, it said I couldn't load Hal. I finally just did a clean install. I got tired of messing with it.