If you ever go to add or remove software in Mandriva Linux and receive that error message, try this:

1. Open up Konsole.
2. Type “su” and enter your root password to move to the root account.
3. Type “urpmi rpmdrake” and complete the install of the rpmdrake program.

For some reason, rpmdrake may get corrupted or may never have been installed. Regardless, this solved this error message for me and it may for you. Good luck!