rpm database problem

[Joe Renes <yukon pfennig ugcs caltech edu>]

Hello,

I'm having a bit of trouble with the rpm database. querying it with 
rpm -q -a gives a nice big list, but querying a specific package, e.g. 
rpm -q xcdroast[blah] says xcdroast not installed, when the global
query clearly lists it. this then prevents me from removing any packages
as it thinks they're not installed. 

thanks

-joe