Thread: Re-Install data folder failure

I have been having troubles getting 8.3 running on Windows XP.  My
last couple of attempts have been to install 8.3 in a folder off the
root rather than off of 'Program Files'.  Since I ‘uninstalled’ it, I
have not been able to get a good installation.  I have tried many
times.  I use Control Panels Add&Remove to remove 8.3 and then I go
through the registry and remove any remaining entries tjat address
'postgres'.  When I start a new install, it always points to c:
\program files\postg… which I change on the setup page to the new c:
\pghome.  I have a leftover environmental variable pgdata which points
to c:\pghome\8.3\data.  But this folder never gets built anymore.
That is, there is not data folder.

Any ideas on how I can get this built?

I am installing this from an administrator account and I have a
postgres account that is a power user.  I have tried but can not
install from that account.  The PostgreSQL notes say that it is no
longer necessary to operate from a non-administrator account so I
tried to do things from the admin account and when it doesn’t work, I
try it from the postgres power user account.  So far, neither have
worked.  But I am guessing that is due to the no ‘data’ folder.

 Ray

On Apr 21, 9:55 am, plk.zu...@gmail.com (Filip Rembiałkowski) wrote:
> 2009/4/20 ray <Ray.Jos...@cdicorp.com>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I have been having troubles getting 8.3 running on Windows XP.  My
> > last couple of attempts have been to install 8.3 in a folder off the
> > root rather than off of 'Program Files'.  Since I ‘uninstalled’ it, I
> > have not been able to get a good installation.  I have tried many
> > times.  I use Control Panels Add&Remove to remove 8.3 and then I go
> > through the registry and remove any remaining entries tjat address
> > 'postgres'.  When I start a new install, it always points to c:
> > \program files\postg… which I change on the setup page to the new c:
> > \pghome.  I have a leftover environmental variable pgdata which points
> > to c:\pghome\8.3\data.  But this folder never gets built anymore.
> > That is, there is not data folder.
>
> > Any ideas on how I can get this built?
>
> > I am installing this from an administrator account and I have a
> > postgres account that is a power user.  I have tried but can not
> > install from that account.  The PostgreSQL notes say that it is no
> > longer necessary to operate from a non-administrator account so I
> > tried to do things from the admin account and when it doesn’t work, I
> > try it from the postgres power user account.  So far, neither have
> > worked.  But I am guessing that is due to the no ‘data’ folder.
>
> >  Ray
>
> which installer are you using? (please share exact url where you downloaded
> it)? which version is it? did you remove postgres account after
> uninstalling? (the installer should create it IIRC)
>
> to build data directory you can use initdb tool.
>
> --
> Filip Rembiałkowski
> JID,mailto:filip.rembialkow...@gmail.comhttp://filip.rembialkowski.net/- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Filip,

Thank you for showing me the holes in what I thought would be a
complete account.  I appreciate your detailed review.

I downloaded 8.3.7 from
http://wwwmaster.postgresql.org/download/mirrors-ftp/binary/v8.3.7/win32/postgresql-8.3.7-1.zip.
I downloaded a couple of times from the same and diffferent mirrors.
Sometimes the installation would state that there was an error and
that the installation file may have been bad.  I did not collect any
information as to which sites this occured from.

I removed the postgres account from the OS before the last
installation process.  A new postges OS account was not setup by the
installer.  After connecting to a new server, a postgres database was
shown along with another that used my OS logon name.

Ray

On Apr 20, 1:29 pm, ray <Ray.Jos...@CDICorp.com> wrote:
> I have been having troubles getting 8.3 running on Windows XP.  My
> last couple of attempts have been to install 8.3 in a folder off the
> root rather than off of 'Program Files'.  Since I ‘uninstalled’ it, I
> have not been able to get a good installation.  I have tried many
> times.  I use Control Panels Add&Remove to remove 8.3 and then I go
> through the registry and remove any remaining entries tjat address
> 'postgres'.  When I start a new install, it always points to c:
> \program files\postg… which I change on the setup page to the new c:
> \pghome.  I have a leftover environmental variable pgdata which points
> to c:\pghome\8.3\data.  But this folder never gets built anymore.
> That is, there is not data folder.
>
> Any ideas on how I can get this built?
>

The method I used to resolve this was to:
1)  Use Control Panel to Remove the previous installation.  It left
behind the 'data' folder.
2)  Install with the msi file choosing not to install as a service.
3)  After installation was complete, the log stated:
 MSI (c) (38:10) [07:57:45:317]: Product: PostgreSQL 8.3 --
Installation completed successfully.
4)  I set the environment variable 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH' to 'C:\pgHome
\8.3\lib'.
5)  Set the environment variable PGDATA to 'C:\pgHome\8.3\data'.
6)  Renamed the old 'data' folder to 'data_old'.
7)  From the command prompt, I executed 'initdb' with no parameters
allowing PGDATA to drive the location, which responded with:
  Success. You can now start the database server using: . . .
8)  Executed:  'pg_ctl -l firstlogfile.txt start' which produced a
logfile in the bin folder (from where the command was issued).
9)  Executed 'createdb' to produce a new database under my logon name.
10)  From pgAdmin3, the new server was visible.
11)  From pgAdmin3, I set 3 more connections which established 3
servers.
12)  From pgAdmin3, I dropped the original server setup from the
command line.
13)  Each server has 2 databases: postgres and myname.

Now, if I can just find out if these are persistant and useful . . .

Ray