GnuCash hangs on reading data

[Lee Hauser]

I'm running GC 2.2.5 on Mac OS X Leopard and suddenly am unable to
open my data file. There are no error message of any sort...GnuCash
starts up, loads all its parts, then simply hangs when the splash
screen reports "loading data."

How can I tell GnuCash to create a fresh data file? I have very little
information in GnuCash at the moment, since I'm just learning it and
wouldn't mind starting from scratch. Even if I try to remove the
existing data file from the data folder, GnuCash still halts.