Re: Start DB giving fatal message.(linux)

On 10/23/07, Farhan Khan <farhankhan@google.com> wrote:
> Because of some OS failure I have to reinstall linux and postgres and now
> database start gives me following error message.  Any pointers will be
> apprciated ...
>
> testuser@machine:postgresql-8.2.5$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D
> /usr/local/pgsql/data
> LOG:  database system was shut down at 2007-10-23 16:30:49 PDT
> LOG:  checkpoint record is at 0/42C408
> LOG:  redo record is at 0/42C408; undo record is at 0/0; shutdown TRUE
> LOG:  next transaction ID: 0/593; next OID: 10820
> LOG:  next MultiXactId: 1; next MultiXactOffset: 0
> LOG:  database system is ready
> FATAL:  database "db_test1" does not exist
>  FATAL:  database "db_test1" does not exist
>  FATAL:  database "db_test1" does not exist
>  FATAL:  database "db_test1" does not exist
>
> " db_test1" was one the databases I was using before reinstalling
> everything. Note during re-installation, I have formatted the harddrive
> which has erased the /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres folder ... but there were
> some stuff that persisted as it was on NFS (this includes the installer for
> postgres) ...
>
> BTW, where does postgres saves all db related information which is used at
> db start time. Is there a utility to edit this information??

If what you've written is correct, your old db, db_test1 is gone, lost
when you formatted your hard drive.  postgres stores it's data in
different places depending on the OS and how it was installed.  The
part after the -D in your startup up there is where it is storing its
data right now.  Where the old version stored it is anybody's guess.
OS / pg version and how pg was installed on the old machine would help
us guess where it might have been before formatting erased it.