[SLL] /etc overwritten; is there any hope?

[William Kreuter]

Looks like I really clobbered an RHEL-4 machine pretty
badly.  I was just finishing up its setup.  As almost
the last thing to do, I copied some trees from an
older RHEL-3 machine that the newer one is to replace
-- and witlessly I copied the /etc tree as well.

This has smashed up the RHEL-4 machine pretty badly.
Among what I've tried so far to fix it, without
success, includes going through the upgrade path on
the RHEL-4 install disks, and copying the /etc tree
from another RHEL-4 machine.  Some of what I've
tried has made it worse.

X doesn't start at all.

Is any rescue possible short of a fresh install?  I
also tried the install path of the RHEL-4 CDs,
hoping to use an option (which has worked on the
same machine in the past) to retain user data but
replace the installation, but I'm getting stuck with
that, too.

Of course I didn't back up the /etc tree before
clobbering it.  Is there any hope?

Billy