Booting into empty grub prompt and slow GDM

Hello,
I haven't performed update for long time and I did last day. I had issues related to /sbin exists etc which I have resolved by following the instructions posted in the Arch linux website. However after a successful update, I have the following issues. 
(1) - When I log in back, it puts me into an empty grub prompt. I figured out that pacman changed menu.lst to menu.lst.pacsave. So from the grub prompt, I did
configfile /grub/menu.lst.pacsave
and I got the arch linux boot screen.
(2) - It started booting and loaded GDM with the login screen. Login and key strokes are very slow here. Even after login, I don't see GNOME shell. I don't see any errors while booting.
Any help to fix these issues would be good.
Cheers
Navaneeth

What exactly did you do when following the instructions? That is, following them is good, but it would be better if people could make sure there was no misunderstanding which might be causing issues.
You need to go back further through the news as you have evidently ignored various changes to Arch.
For example, legacy grub has not been in the official repos for some time. When you updated, grub2 (which is now called grub) replaced grub (legacy). Hence the pacsave. But you still have grub legacy installed as your boot loader. If you want to keep using it, install the AUR package which has been updated to work with the new filesystem package. Otherwise, configure and install grub (i.e. grub2) or install an alternative such as syslinux.
You are likely to have other pacnew and pacsave files. You need to look through pacman's output (/var/log/pacman.log) and follow the instructions there to ensure that your system is properly configured in light of the updates.
Arch is meant to be updated frequently. If that isn't an option, you would be better served by a different distro.

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