[WinXP]Reinstalling PostgreSQL with an existing DB

[kaizer]

I got a problem today with PT3, I've tryed to reinstall it entirely today, but on the PostgreSQL installation I encountered this message :

The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "SYSTEM".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale English_United States.1252.
The default text search configuration will be set to "english".

initdb: directory "C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.3/data" exists but is not empty
If you want to create a new database system, either remove or empty
the directory "C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.3/data" or run initdb
with an argument other than "C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.3/data".

In fact it means that there is already a directory created with a database already existing i.e the older.
The thing is that I want to use this older database keeping my old hand history so I can do the installation using the existing database ?

[WhiteRider]

Postgres manages the database files, so re-installing will mess up this management.
I don't know whether this is recoverable, or how to do it, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait for one of the postgres experts to come along.

[keggler]

what problem prompted you to try and re-install everything?

the re-installation looks like it's failed and left your old db intact - if you are determined to re-install, get the version (beta 15) without the postgres bundle and that should leave the db clusters alone...

if indeed you have done something with the full re-install, we'll try and back off and recover your old db manually...


susan