diff --git a/wp-includes/functions.php b/wp-includes/functions.php
index abc71c377a..4a1d74edf0 100644
--- a/wp-includes/functions.php
+++ b/wp-includes/functions.php
@@ -1240,13 +1240,17 @@ function wp_die( $message, $title = '' ) {
 	else
 		$admin_dir = 'wp-admin/';
 
-	if ( !did_action('admin_head') ) :
+	if ( !function_exists('did_action') || !did_action('admin_head') ) :
+	status_header(500);
+	nocache_headers();
 	header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
 
-	if ( empty($title) )
-		$title = __('WordPress &rsaquo; Error');
-
-
+	if ( empty($title) ){
+		if( function_exists('__') )
+			$title = __('WordPress &rsaquo; Error');
+		else
+			$title = 'WordPress &rsaquo; Error';
+	}
 
 ?>
 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
diff --git a/wp-includes/wp-db.php b/wp-includes/wp-db.php
index 60171cc143..a2b98c7c66 100644
--- a/wp-includes/wp-db.php
+++ b/wp-includes/wp-db.php
@@ -401,29 +401,7 @@ class wpdb {
 	function bail($message) { // Just wraps errors in a nice header and footer
 		if ( !$this->show_errors )
 			return false;
-
-		header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
-
-		if (strpos($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], 'wp-admin') !== false)
-			$admin_dir = '';
-		else
-			$admin_dir = 'wp-admin/';
-
-?>
-<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
-<head>
-	<title>WordPress &rsaquo; Error</title>
-	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
-	<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo $admin_dir; ?>install.css" type="text/css" />
-</head>
-<body>
-	<h1 id="logo"><img alt="WordPress" src="<?php echo $admin_dir; ?>images/wordpress-logo.png" /></h1>
-	<p><?php echo $message; ?></p>
-</body>
-</html>
-<?php
-		die();
+		wp_die($message);
 	}
 }
 
diff --git a/wp-settings.php b/wp-settings.php
index 86bf210d7b..1aed6a17f0 100644
--- a/wp-settings.php
+++ b/wp-settings.php
@@ -113,6 +113,10 @@ if ( !defined('LANGDIR') ) {
 
 if ( !defined('PLUGINDIR') )
 	define('PLUGINDIR', 'wp-content/plugins'); // no leading slash, no trailing slash
+
+require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/compat.php');
+require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/functions.php');
+
 if ( file_exists(ABSPATH . 'wp-content/db.php') )
 	require_once (ABSPATH . 'wp-content/db.php');
 else
@@ -122,7 +126,7 @@ else
 $wpdb->prefix = $table_prefix;
 
 if ( preg_match('|[^a-z0-9_]|i', $wpdb->prefix) && !file_exists(ABSPATH . 'wp-content/db.php') )
-	die("<strong>ERROR</strong>: <code>$table_prefix</code> in <code>wp-config.php</code> can only contain numbers, letters, and underscores.");
+	wp_die("<strong>ERROR</strong>: <code>$table_prefix</code> in <code>wp-config.php</code> can only contain numbers, letters, and underscores.");
 
 // Table names
 $wpdb->posts          = $wpdb->prefix . 'posts';
@@ -151,9 +155,6 @@ else
 
 wp_cache_init();
 
-require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/compat.php');
-require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/functions.php');
-
 require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/classes.php');
 require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/plugin.php');
 require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/default-filters.php');
