Re: SOS. Database Lost - Mailing list pgsql-admin

Scott Marlowe wrote:

On 8/20/07, luis perruca <l.perruca@gmail.com> wrote: 

Hi All: I'm From Spain and I'll try to write in english as best as possible:   

Your english > my spanish, so please don't worry.
 

I'm new in the list, and I have a serious problem: I am novice with
Postgresql and I haven't found any solution.
I Wil descrive the scenario:

I have Postgresql 8.0.1 running on Windows 2003 Server.
I have a Backup of my database, but is a little old   

A pg_dump type backup, or a file system backup?
 

A file System backup

And here is my problem:

First, the Postgresql service didn't started (really started, but shut down
immediatly)   

What steps led to this happening.  They might be important.

Did you install new /update software on this server?  Especially
anti-virus software?  That stuff's nearly as dangerous as a virus
itself for a database.

What are the exact error messages you got when this happened.
 

I don't remember exactly the error, but says something like "the service started and then shut down. (some services shut down when have nothing to do)". This really says nothing.

then I copied all the "postgresql" folder in other place, uninstalled and
reinstalled Postgresql, and then overwrite the "data" folder with the one
from the copy that I did.   

Did you shut down postgresql while you were copying those files back? 

Yes, postgresql was down when restoring the folder.

Now, the service starts properly, but the database doesn´t work. I did
"pg_resetxlog" (I don´t know what it does, but I saw it somewhere).   

It reselts the transaction log pointer.  It has likely set back in
time to when there was nothing in the database.  Just guessing.
 

From pgAdmin III, I see the database, I access it, I see the tables and
their properties, but no data.  I get the error  "xlog flush request
6D/432AAAA8 is not satisfied --- flushed only to 0/C03D020  CONTEXT: writing
block 925 of relation 16631/17254/18128" when I try to view the tables   

Have you still got that old pg directory?  Try shutting down pgsql,
copying the data part back in place, and restarting pgsql and see if
it starts up right or not. 

The service starts, but with the errors that I have told: I see the tables but I get error or no data.

I would need to know if I can recover the data from the tables and how to do
it.   

Can't tell from what you've told us so far.  Need more info of how you
got into this state and exact error messages you're getting as well.

My one piece of advice would be that if you data that's important,
look into running PostgreSQL (or any database really) on a unix box
with regular backups.  If you must use windows use a single purpose
machine firewalled away from the rest of the universe with only a
pgsql port (5432) showing and no logins for anyone but the DBA to the
machine.