python2.5 importerror on md5

[samn]

i compiled and installed the release version of python 2.5 for linux to
a directory accessible to 2 computers, configured with
--prefix=/usr/arch (which is accessible to both machines). the
installation went fine and when i run python on one machine i can do
from hashlib import * without a problem. on the other machine i get the
following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/hashlib.py", line 104, in <module>
    md5 = __get_builtin_constructor('md5')
  File "/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/hashlib.py", line 31, in
__get_builtin_constructor
    import _md5
ImportError: No module named _md5

I have the file md5.py , md5.pyo , and md5.pyc in
/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/ so I don't know why python is having a problem
finding the md5 module...

The sys.path is equal on both machines :
['', '/usr/arch/lib/python25.zip', '/usr/arch/lib/python2.5',
'/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2',
'/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/lib-tk',
'/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload',
'/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/site-packages',
'/usr/arch/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0']

Here is the version info :
Python 2.5 (r25:51908, Oct 23 2006, 13:38:11)
[GCC 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-56)] on linux2

If anyone has encountered similar problems or knows of a way to
fix/suggestions please let me know.

Thanks in advance.
Sam