Help with installing pear to a different location

[Sriram Natarajan <Sriram.Natarajan@xxxxxxx>]

Hi
I am trying to install pear to different location compared to where the 
rest of the php is installed. However, I am running into the following 
error.

Notice: unserialize(): Error at offset 365 of 980 bytes in 
phar://install-pear-nozlib.phar/PEAR/Config.php on line 1007

Fatal error: Call to undefined method PEAR_Error::getLayers() in 
phar://install-pear-nozlib.phar/index.php on line 66
*** Error code 255

Any help on how to resolve this error will be very helpful

thanks in advance
sriram