YDL 2.3 install problem

[Bill Judd]

Last September I bought the YDL book with the 2.3 CD.

Recently, I had to rebuild my hard drive... another, even longer story, 
which I will not re-tell ;-(

When I went to re-install YDL 2.3, I discovered the CD had a small 
crack in it at the center... too much carrying around that book in my 
backpack, I guess.

So, I downloaded a 2.3 iso image last night, burned a CD this morning 
and began the install.

Now, after going thru the partition / mountpoint / formatting dialogs, 
I get a dialog that says "Could not create rpm directories or database: 
exceptions. Exception: [Errno 5] input/output error: '/tmp/root/var'.

I searched old archives and saw how earlier versions had similar 
problems when **re-installing** and the directory already existed, 
resulting in an Errno=17, I think.  In my situation, though, the 
partitions are made from scratch from Apple_Free space in the YDL 
installer.

I "crtl-opt-f2"'d and typed "ls /tmp/root" and did not see a var 
directory listed.  I then typed "mkdir /tmp/root/var" and got "var: 
Input/output error"

Can someone share a workaround please?

Thanks very much,

Bill Judd