I had both of these errors and they were both resolved on a Linux machine.
SUMMARY:
=========
Endless Redirect: DO NOT MANUALLY CONFIG THE wp-config.php file.
Empty Database tables: Create an EMPTY .htaccess file, and give full
write permissions.
DETAILS:
=========
Re-install wordpress as follows:
1. Drop the database (to simplify the task of removing ALL tables).
2. Create the database. If using MySQL, assuming:
database name: wpdb
database user: wpdbadmin
database password: wpdbadmin_pwd791
host: localhost
Login to MySQL and run the following commands:
CREATE DATABASE wpdb;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wpdb.* TO "wpdbadmin"@"localhost"
IDENTIFIED BY "wpdbadmin_pwd791";
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT
3. Go to your install directory, and delete the wp-config.php file.
4. Make sure an .htaccess file exists. (It can be empty, or just copy
htaccess.dist to .htaccess).
5. Modify the permissions to the .htaccess file as follows:
chmod 777 .htaccess
6. Change the owner of the .htaccess file to the same owner running the
web server. (Assuming the owner is "apache"):
chown apache .htaccess
7. Make sure the install directory, and the wp-content directory have
the same permission settings as .htaccess (see steps 5 & 6 above)
8. Re-run the install script from the web browser:
Subdirectory: http://www.yourdomain.edu/wordpress/index.php
Subdomain: wordpress.yourdomain.edu/index.php
I hope this helps!