Hard drive fail

[Fivetimes18]

I had my postgres 8.3 data directory set up on a second hard drive D: but kept the program on my C: drive. Unfortunately the drive with the data on failed losing all my data. When I try to restore a backup using pgadmin I cannot access the 8.3 server. I have tried uninstalling/re-installing postgres but when uninstalling via the add/remove programs I get an error message: "The folder path 'Program Files' contains invalid character." I cannot access PT3 as I cannot get past the configure postgresql server screen.

Do I need to set up a new data dir on my C: drive? How do I tell postgres where that is?

[WhiteRider]

There are tutorials about moving the PostgreSQL data folder, etc, in the this guide.

Should you need to reinstall there is a guide here.

[Fivetimes18]

I have looked but those links aren't helping. I can't access postgres at all. For instance if I try to access the pg_hba.conf file it says "The device is not ready".

Being as the add/remove programs way won't work is there a way to manually uninstall postgres?

[WhiteRider]

Kraada has more experience with this kind of thing and he should be on later. Either he will be able to suggest something for you to try or we'll look into it further and work with you to get things sorted out again.

[kraada]

The first place to start is probably to try re-running the installer and attempting to install to a different directory - let's see if that works or not before trying other things. If nothing else, that should update the available settings to point to the new virgin database which should hopefully be uncorrupted.

[Fivetimes18]

I tried installing a newer version of postgres over the top of my current installation but that stopped and gave me the message:

The folder path 'Program Files' contains invalid character.

[Fivetimes18]

Sorry I mean I ran the update. I'll try and re-run it as a new install.

[kraada]

That should work just as well - the update file is just a bit simpler and involves less clicking. Please let me know if you run into any problems.