Thanks Scott. Well, PostgreSQL runs just fine. As I said, I can create new db, new tables, etc. everything works just fine for new stuff. when I say psql shows nothing, I really mean "nothing". No error messages. Of course if I create a new db, psql -l shows my new db. psql -l List of databases Name | Owner | Encoding --------+----------+----------- testdb | postgres | SQL_ASCII (1 row) What I am curious about is, what are in those 50 GB worth of files. "strings" shows me there are some data that I might be interested in saving before I erase this pg instance. --- Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Can you get postgresql to startup? Are you trying > to use pg_ctl to > start it or /etc/init.d/postgresql scripts? > > Basically, you need the database up and running > first. When you "psql > and pg_dump don't see those files" what errors are > you actually getting? > > On Fri, 2006-07-28 at 14:23, Mingzuo Shen wrote: > > Thanks Aaron. > > > > No. pg_dump, psql do not "see" those files. > > As I said, psql -l shows "nothing". > > pg_dumpall outputs nothing. > > > > strings 3476895975 > > > > for example, does show a lot of text, > > some of them seem to be actual data > > that I am interested in extracting. > > > > If I create a new db and create new tables > > in the new db, then they work as usual. > > > > > > > > --- Aaron Bono <postgresql@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > On 7/22/06, Shen, Mingzuo <mshen@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > > > > Hello, > > > > > > > > I see some OS files (50+ GB total) but cannot > see > > > anything in psql -l. > > > > There seem to be some big tables there. > > > > I wonder if there are some tools that would > dump > > > the tables in text. > > > > or, how to make PostgreSQL "connect" to these > > > files again? > > > > > > > > > > You can dump the whole database contents with > > > pg_dump. This dumps your > > > whole database with data into a text file. Is > this > > > what you mean? > > > > > > > > > ================================================================== > > > Aaron Bono > > > Aranya Software Technologies, Inc. > > > http://www.aranya.com > > > > > > ================================================================== > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------(end of > broadcast)--------------------------- > > TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space > map settings >