deleted /bitcoin folder (with its subfolders) and re-installed.  Same error.

I will say that something just didn't seem right about the initial Bitcoin install.  It never created a wallet.dat file, I searched high and low, even used the Ubuntu file search.  I thought, well maybe it's only created on first use.  So I sent 0.01 BTC from my windows box to Ubuntu.  Never arrived.  That was about the time of the freeze-up too.  Now I've got a 0/unconfirmed transaction in my windows Bitcoin (whatever becomes of those orphaned trans?).