completely scr*wed now - please help

[alien]

okay, so since I was not able to get into the database mysql anymore (story on my previous post) my dumb ass decided to try deleting it and recreat it with mysql_install_db. Well, that didn't work. So, my stupid ass decided go download it again and just run the install and hoping it would just replace the missing files... well, I didn't realize the version I downloaded is just a tiny bit different... my system is running version 3.23.56 and I downloaded 3.23.57 Anyways, I ran the rpm to install the package. What happenned? I got file conflicts, thats when I realized my new downloaded package is a different version. What did my stupid dumb ass do? I go manually delete all the conflicted files. Ran the rpm install again and noooo it didn't work. I still got the same file conflicts! But the funny thing is the files do not exist anymore. How can that be??? I think I totally screwed. My original install was from redhat 9 by the way. I tried using the add/remove programs in redhat... but that didn't work either, tell me missing files.... the ones I deleted from mysql folder.... so can somebody help my padawan ass??? Please tell me there is a way to force the installation or manually completely remove the old mysql package so i can just reinstall it.

[genlee]

Download the rpm of your prvious version and run this:
rpm -Uvh --replacepkgs somefile.rpm

[alien]

that worked! you are da man! I had to run the mysql_install_db and then delete the mysql.socket thing. restart the system for good measure and everything works now. thank you so much. no regrets... i actually learned alot from this problem.