Feisty upgrade failed because packages vanished from /var/cache/apt/archives

Attaching the files requested in the message

This is what I got when I tried the recommended solution:

 sudo dpkg --configure -a
Password:
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of apache2:
 apache2 depends on apache2-mpm-worker (>= 2.2.3-3.2build1) | apache2-mpm-prefork (>= 2.2.3-3.2build1) | apache2-mpm-event (>= 2.2.3-3.2build1); however:
  Package apache2-mpm-worker is not installed.
  Version of apache2-mpm-prefork on system is 2.0.55-4ubuntu4.
  Package apache2-mpm-event is not installed.
dpkg: error processing apache2 (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 apache2

Here is the error:

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-libc-dev_2.6.20-12.20_i386.deb (--unpack):
 cannot access archive: No such file or directory

It looks like for some reason packages got deleted during the download. How long did the download go for you?

It took about 5 or 6 hours to download all the packages. I wasn't there when it finished though - came back the next morning and it was asking a question. It failed shortly after that. Nobody was using any applications on the machine but the usual background processes were running.

In my case I did install Feisty successfully. The problem started when I tried to fix wireless card BCM4318 .
Looking for tutorial I started with installing BCN43XX.
I went to the Terminal and : sudo apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutternd
Something went wrong at that step, I closed the Terminal and looked for a better tutorial, found it
http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/pool/feisty-cafuego/bcm43xx/bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb and wireless is OK.
I found out that I have a problem the was corrupted" (screenshot one) I ran "dpkg --configure -a" (Screenshot No. 2)and get out of this to a
different one, the "package BCN43XX firmware need to be reinstalled........."

I hope that the information will be helpful.

Thanks for this additional information.

Can you please give me the output of:
$ apt-config dump |grep -i MinAge

It looks like this is a race with the cleanup process for the debs in /var/cache/apt/archives

Output is
richardn@auror:~$ apt-config dump |grep -i MinAge
APT::Archives::MinAge "2";

Note that I have managed to complete the upgrade manually by apt-get installing everything that apt-get upgrade said was held back.

Thanks,
Richard.

Perhaps we should try to get a lock in the clean up script before remving files.

This is fixed in the hardy version of the upgrader, it will ensure that the cache dir is not touched.