problems with purging(?) LDAP database

["Jesse M. Davis" <jdavis@ittc.ukans.edu>]

Hello.  I have had problems resetting my LDAP database.  I'm using
OpenLDAP-1.2.9 , and have been doing the following to reset the database:

shut down slapd
cd /home/ldap
rm -f *        (i remove everything)
start slapd
ldif2ldbm  my LDAP tree

Is this the normal way to "reset" or purge the LDAP database, or should I
be using ldapmodify?  ldif2ldbm only spits back the following error with
-d 256 turned on:

next_id_read: could not open "/home/ldap/NEXTID"

After this, I cannot search for anything in my LDAP directory, e.g.
ldapsearch "objectclass=*"    returns back nothing.

Thanks for any help in advance, this is starting to drive me buggy...

My slapd.conf:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
# This file should NOT be world readable.
#
# Modified by Jesse Davis for initial testing
#
include         /etc/openldap/slapd.at.conf
include         /etc/openldap/slapd.at.ambient.conf
include         /etc/openldap/slapd.oc.conf
include         /etc/openldap/slapd.oc.ambient.conf
schemacheck     on
#referral       ldap://ldap.itd.umich.edu

pidfile         /var/run/slapd.pid
argsfile        /var/run/slapd.args

#######################################################################
# ldbm database definitions
#######################################################################

database        ldbm
#suffix         "dc=My Org, dc=com"
suffix          "o=My Org, c=US"
directory       /home/ldap
#rootdn         "cn=root, dc=your-domain, dc=com"
index           default
defaultaccess   read
rootdn          "cn=root, o=My Org, c=US"
rootpw          secret
# cleartext passwords, especially for the rootdn, should
# be avoid.  See slapd.conf(5) for details.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------
Jesse Davis  jdavis@ittc.ukans.edu
   "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then
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