> This suggsts your init script is broken. You ought to be able to > test whether postgres will run properly by setting PGDATA correctly, > and then running /path/to/pg8.x/bin/pg_ctl start. Whether postgres > will run is not exactly the same question as whether your init script > is correct.
The /data directory was owned by Postgres user. I ran the command you sent and the system didn't like it because root owned the /bin directoy. I changed the owner to postgres and now the message that I get is pg_ctl: no database directory specified and environmental variable PGDATA unset
> It wouldn't, but your old data still need to be dumped and restored; > and without a running 8.1, that won't help you. Unless you mean that > you'd install 8.2.x and load from a backup.
Yes, that's what I meant.
>Even there, you might > have problems, because when doing an upgrade, you need to pg_dump > with the new pg_dump, not the old one.
The database is very simple, probably doesn't have any version specific code. There are no blobs. It was backed up in plain text. This is my backup command.