Up grade error on V1.9 Elgg

Installed V1.8 and installed V1.9 under the Install guide for 1.8 to 1.9 and get the following error.

When going to upgrade.php it give this error: You must update your .htaccess file so that the path is injected into the GET parameter __elgg_uri (you can use install/config/htaccess.dist as a guide).

And if I go to the url it give me this error: 

Fatal Error.

An unrecoverable error has occurred and has been logged. Contact the site administrator with the following information:

Exception #1447387124.

In the process of restoring from backup copy as of right now to try it again.  Any idea of what went wrong?

Thanks

ComwayAdmin