rpm dead - as in "gone"

[v8625]

Kernel upgrade from stock RedHat 9.0 (2.4.20-8) to 2.6.7 resulted in 
complete loss of all rpm functionality. Any and all rpm commands bring 
no result - while system appears to be working on something, the rpm and 
openpkg processes "chewing" through something, nothing comes up even 
after I let it run overnight.
After upgrading kernel I installed openpkg 2.0 - botstrapped from source 
- again, I can't use any rpm commands for installing, uninstalling or 
anything else.
So now I have two complete sets of rpm database files:
on in /var/lib/rpm
[EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# ls -l /var/lib/rpm
total 39592
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm       5414912 Jul  8 21:54 Basenames
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         12288 Jul  4 23:26 Conflictname
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm        909312 Jul  8 21:54 Dirnames
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm       5279744 Jul  8 21:54 Filemd5s
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         12288 Jul  8 21:54 Group
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         16384 Jul  8 21:54 Installtid
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         45056 Jul  8 21:54 Name
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm      30015488 Jul  8 21:54 Packages
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm        335872 Jul  8 21:54 Providename
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         77824 Jul  8 21:54 Provideversion
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         12288 Jul  8 21:54 Pubkeys
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm        217088 Jul  8 21:54 Requirename
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm        143360 Jul  8 21:54 Requireversion
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         86016 Jul  8 21:54 Sha1header
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         45056 Jul  8 21:54 Sigmd5
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm         12288 Jul  8 21:54 Triggername

and one in /usr/RPM/DB
[EMAIL PROTECTED] DB]# ls -l /usr/RPM/DB
total 752
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Basenames
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Conflictname
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Depends
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        32768 Jul 10 19:18 Dirnames
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Filemd5s
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Group
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        32768 Jul 10 19:18 Installtid
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Name
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Packages
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Providename
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        32768 Jul 10 19:18 Provideversion
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Pubkeys
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Requirename
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        32768 Jul 10 19:18 Requireversion
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Sha1header
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Sigmd5
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        49152 Jul 10 19:18 Triggername
Neither one of these allow me to rebuild  the database though -either 
from rpm or from openpkg rpm:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] rpm]# db_verify Packages
db_verify: unable to join the environment
db_verify: Old or incorrect DB version; extraneous errors may result
db_verify: DB->verify: Packages: DB_VERIFY_BAD: Database verification failed

Obvioulsy, the rpm --rebuilddb does the same thing as any other rpm 
command - the system begins to "work" on something, but there are no 
results. Or should I just let it "work" on it for a week? Ridiculous of 
course.

I tried it under LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1 and LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 and 
even booted into the old kernel and tried it from there - same results.

Any and all ideas/suggestions/etc. would be highly appreciated.
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