Problems creating DB2 UDB LUW db from GUI tools

I've had tons of problems creating db's (or doing some other operations) from the GUID tools, including Data Studio, and the control center (under db2 9.7).

It's always complained about the DAS, but the DAS (the DB2 Administration Server) is always happily running.

Today I stumbled across something that told me to issue the following command:

db2admin create

I then ran a

db2admin start

!!!! WORKED LIKE A CHARM !!!!

After that, I was able to successfully verify the instance, connect, and create the db I was trying to create.

Sorry - wish I had captured some screenshots along the way, but now that I've fixed it, I can't reproduce ;-)

At any rate, hope this helps someone.