Heads list went down

Mailman was down! whee!  Mailman is complaining that the "Mailman" list
doesn't exist.  not true.  here's the error message:

ballistichelmet:/home/ahawley# /etc/init.d/mailman start
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/lib/mailman/bin/list_lists", line 122, in ?
    main()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/bin/list_lists", line 94, in main
    mlist = MailList.MailList(n, lock=0)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 128, in __init__
    self.Load()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 608, in Load
    raise Errors.MMCorruptListDatabaseError, e
Mailman.Errors.MMCorruptListDatabaseError: [Errno 2] No such file or
directory: '/var/lib/mailman/lists/heads/config.db.last'
Site list for mailman (usually named mailman) missing
Please create it; until then, mailman will refuse to start

the heads administration web page gives this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/lib/mailman/scripts/driver", line 96, in run_main
    main()
  File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/listinfo.py", line 51, in main
    listinfo_overview(_('No such list %(safelistname)s'))
  File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/listinfo.py", line 87, in
listinfo_overview
    mlist = MailList.MailList(name, lock=0)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 128, in __init__
    self.Load()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 608, in Load
    raise Errors.MMCorruptListDatabaseError, e
MMCorruptListDatabaseError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:
'/var/lib/mailman/lists/heads/config.db.last'

apparently the problem was that the heads list configuration file called
config.pck (theh "pickled"  configuration) went corrupt.  there was a
config.pck.new that i was created when the upgrade happened and which I
saved.  but of course has none of the original settings.

essentially what i'm saying is that we might have lost our subscriber
list.  not sure what did it.

the helmet went down sometime last evening unexpectedly and came back up
with "unclean" (improperly shutdown) messages on one partition.  i never
got offered to run fsck, but this might be helpful.  i'd imagine the heads
configuration file is corrputed indefinitely.

anybody have any ideas?
/a