Hi,
I had a similar problem with an install of wordpress.
So I shelled into the box and checked my wp-config.php file; the formatting of the file seemed to be jumbled (I guess this happened when I’d ftped it?). I tried to ftp again but – same problem – the file was still looking pretty screwed up.
Luckily I had another install of WordPress on the box so I was able to copy the wp-config.php from that install over to my new one. That seemed to do the trick for me. Hope this helps here.