db not dumping properly, or at least not restoring - Mailing list pgsql-general

I am trying to move databases to another macine (and update from 8.2
to 8.4 along the way). I first tried pg_dumpall, but I found that one
of the data bases did not restore and data, just an empty db with no
tables. Since then I have tried pg_dump with the following:

bash-3.2$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_dump -o mn_timber > /Volumes/disk3/
backup_db/mn_timber20091016.out

then restore on the new machine with:

kwythers$ pg_restore -C -d postgres mn_timber20091016.out

But I am getting the error:

pg_restore: [archiver] input file does not appear to be a valid archive
onceler:~ kwythers$

Looking at the db on the original machine, all looks good.

mn_timber=# \d
                    List of relations
  Schema |          Name          |   Type   |  Owner
--------+------------------------+----------+----------
  public | all_timber_data        | view     | kwythers
  public | county                 | table    | kwythers
  public | forties                | table    | kwythers
  public | geometry_columns       | table    | kwythers
  public | grid_cell              | view     | kwythers
  public | mn_pls_grid            | table    | kwythers
  public | mn_pls_grid_gid_seq    | sequence | kwythers
  public | rdir                   | table    | kwythers
  public | session                | table    | kwythers
  public | session_session_id_seq | sequence | kwythers
  public | spatial_ref_sys        | table    | kwythers
  public | timber_type            | table    | kwythers
  public | timber_volume          | table    | kwythers
  public | timber_volume_seq      | sequence | kwythers
(14 rows)

mn_timber=# SELECT * FROM timber_volume;
  grid_id | tt_id | year | cords | mbm | poles | posts | tv_id
---------+-------+------+-------+-----+-------+-------+-------
   263515 |    17 | 1920 |    11 |   2 |       |       | 10176
   266999 |     6 | 1920 |     7 |  19 |       |       | 10869
  1141653 |     5 | 1920 |    10 |   1 |       |       | 10238
  1143744 |     5 | 1920 |     2 |   1 |       |       | 10293
   263560 |     9 | 1920 |       |   5 |       |       | 10346
   264027 |     3 | 1920 |    49 |   1 |       |       | 10391
   264180 |     9 | 1920 |    70 |   5 |       |       | 10430
   263728 |     4 | 1920 |       |     |   919 |  1495 | 10468
   263667 |    17 | 1920 |     1 |     |       |       | 10501
   263658 |    17 | 1920 |    15 |     |       |       | 10528
   263984 |     3 | 1920 |    98 |     |       |       | 10554
   264289 |    17 | 1920 |     1 |     |       |       | 10579
   263973 |     4 | 1920 |       |     |    40 |    40 | 10601
.
.
.
(38437 rows)

Any ideas what the problem could be here?

Thanks in advance.