[otrs] Upgrading from 2.27 to 2.32

I have been recently hired into the IT department of my company. As the new guy one of my first jobs has been to upgrade our Otrs install on our Debian Etch server from 2.27 to 2.32. I tried it on a test server at first and was able to get the latest version installed and was able to log in but did not test the system any further after this. Then I ran the scripts to update the DB files as per the instructions and now I am no longer able to log in. None of the user names are valid any more. If someone could tell me an easier way to get this up and working or where I might have gone wrong migrating the database it would be greatly appreciated. Once again this is a Debian 4.0 install using a mysql database. Thanks MattM