hi,
I had exactly the same problem.my gutsy system used /dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2 for windowsXP and /dev/hdd1 for / (root system) and /dev/hdd5 for linux swap.
After installing heron upgrade these devices were replaced with /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 and /dev/sdd1 and /dev/sdd5.
As the mountlist did not have these new disk device names listed in /etc/fstab and there were no similarly named
folders in /media/ for these /dev's the boot failed (same as you)
I rebooted into the install CD and created a folder /media/test (as root) then I mounted my hard disk's /dev/sdd1 ("/" partition) as /media/test then I opened /media/test (edit as root) and changed each /dev/hdxx to /dev/sdxx (xx=your partition names)
The old /media/test/etc/fstab contents =
/etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/hdd1
UUID=1b80f362-2e57-4bdb-a9b1-e319ff22bab1 / ext3 nouser,defaults,errors=remount-ro,atime,auto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 1
# /dev/hdd5
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,atime,noauto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto user,atime,noauto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 0
/dev/hda1 /media/hda1 ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0
/dev/hda2 /media/hda2 ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,devgid=14,devmode=0660 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /media/hdb1 auto nouser,atime,noauto,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/hdb5 none swap auto 0 0
/dev/hdd5 <mount\040point> swap auto 0 0
/dev/hda2 /media/hda2 auto nouser,atime,noauto,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/hda1 /media/hda1 auto nouser,atime,noauto,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/hdc5 <mount\040point> swap auto 0 0
Then AFTER EDITING /media/test/etc/fstab contents are
/etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sdd1
UUID=1b80f362-2e57-4bdb-a9b1-e319ff22bab1 / ext3 nouser,defaults,errors=remount-ro,atime,auto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 1
# /dev/hdd5
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,atime,noauto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto user,atime,noauto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0
/dev/sda2 /media/sda2 ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,devgid=14,devmode=0660 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 auto nouser,atime,noauto,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sdb5 none swap auto 0 0
/dev/sdd5 <mount\040point> swap auto 0 0
/dev/sda2 /media/sda2 auto nouser,atime,noauto,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 auto nouser,atime,noauto,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sdc5 <mount\040point> swap auto 0 0
now create new sd(xx) folders in /media/test/media/
matching ALL the folder names already there EG
if /media/test/media/hda1 exists create a new folder
named /media/test/media/sda1
etc,etc,etc
then save the edited /media/test/etc/fstab
and reboot
the boot process will now find your disks and boot up Ok
I hope this helps
regards Ray