Salvage older PostgreSQL data disk - help?
Conrad <bogus_address@nospam.com>
From: Conrad <bogus_address@nospam.com>
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Date: 2003-12-19T00:43:24Z
Lists: pgsql-general
Greetings, In short: Using a new FreeBSD (4.9) PostgreSQL (7.3) server, can I rescue PostgreSQL data from a hard drive pulled from an older (motherboard just died) FreeBSD (4.??) PostgreSQL (7.??) server? If so, how? The long version: Helping a friend who had a FreeBSD PostgreSQL server crash recently. This was a motherboard failure, and the data on the drives looks usable, but we are rebuilding the server, using a newer PostgreSQL (7.3) - his most recent PostgreSQL dump was a few weeks ago, (hey, at least he was backing it up - sort of). The version of PostgreSQL used to build his data is unknown - whatever was current around August of 2002 (7.1 maybe?). (Once the server is built and the old drive mounted, I may be able to figure out the exact version from the FreeBSD package DB, which should also be on that drive.) Normally, I would tell him to just run with the dump from a couple of weeks ago and live with it, but there has been a lot of non- duplicable work done since then by an individual who left his organization 2 days ago (and apparently cursed his server when she left ;-) ) It would be real nice if we could use one of the old server drives to restore his PostgreSQL DB - without having to build an old PostgreSQL server just to extract the data, then rebuild on a 7.3 server. Is this feasible? Pits or tipfalls, anyone? Cheers and many thanks, Conrad