"Don Doumakes" <spamtrap@pinko.net> writes:
> latest version of postgresql is incompatible with 7.2.x, so I compiled
> postgresql-7.2.7 and attempted to run
> postgres -D copy_of_old_data_dir
You probably wanted to say "postmaster" not "postgres". The quoted
result is about what I'd expect from trying to run a standalone backend
with the wrong arguments ;-)
regards, tom lane