Recovering data from an old disk image

From: Richard Kuhns <rjk(at)wintek(dot)com>
To: <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Recovering data from an old disk image
Date: 2016-07-15 15:37:25
Message-ID: 6f746a21-ccfe-d736-57cf-04e3f87fcfa5@wintek.com
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Greetings,

I need to recover some data from a disk image that was attached to a
virtual machine that has since been deleted.

I'm 99.9% sure that postgres was stopped normally before this image was
saved. Everything was supposed to have been migrated as part of an
upgrade, but it seems that at least one of the original tables didn't
get moved. I've been asked to recover it.

It was apparently decided that there was no reason to save the output of
the pg_dump that was used for the upgrade, since they saved the original
pgsql data directory.

I've copied the entire pgsql directory to a new machine & installed the
most recent 9.3 to try to read it. When I start the server it tells me
that the database was initialized by version 9.4, so it can't handle it.

I uninstalled 9.3 & installed the most recent 9.4. When I try to start
it, it tells me:

postgres[99770]: [1-1] FATAL: database files are incompatible with server
postgres[99770]: [1-2] DETAIL: The database cluster was initialized
with PG_CONTROL_VERSION 937, but the server was compiled with
PG_CONTROL_VERSION 942.

Based on a search of the mailing list archives I'm guessing that the
original postgresql server was a 9.4 beta.

I'd greatly appreciate any help in recovering this database. If anyone
can tell me how to find the postgresql source to the 9.4 version that
used PG_CONTROL_VERSION 937 that would be wonderful. If there's a
simpler way to get at the data that would be even better.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

--
Richard Kuhns <rjk(at)wintek(dot)com>
Wintek Corporation
427 N 6th Street
Lafayette, IN 47901-2211

Main: 765-742-8428
Direct: 765-269-8541

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