Ok..I do not understand exactly what you did. Did you upgrade and then stop/removed apache2, cups and winbind?...Or you first stoped and removed services, then upgraded..Do not understand...Do you have hdd install ? USB install?...I cannot take guess on this.
Well then, I will concentrate on your last question and "guessing you have a HDD: "how can i do the above from outside the OS and disable the startup programs that seem to be preventing backtrack from loading"...
The grub2 should show a recovery mode option...Use it..It will load up only basic things, the least but necessary to boot the OS....check it..
When removing services from runlevels my friend, this is very important to be aware of this: update-rc is used with "remove" option to erase or remove "service link", but the Service (Apache2) has to be removed FIRST...It is a Concept error..Need to read.
So, when apache is removed/uninstalled first, then script in /etc/init.d/apache2 will be purged too. Then use update-rc to remove LINK to the script already purged or removed or uninstalled.
What you can do in recovery mode is to "update-rc defaults" to create all links removed...The ones that already exists are not touched, the rest is created..See if it works...
If it doesn't work, then uninstall apache2 in recovery mode..Then install it again...
Luck.


