Re: Problem with starting Postgres

"Reinhard Hnat" <hnat@logotronic.co.at> writes:
> I am using PG 7.4 I was creating a new Databasecluster. after a first
> successful start of  postmaster i wanted to stop and start again. pg_ctl
> teminated with a message that posmaster won't stop, so i stopped it with -m
> immediate. Since then it is not possible to start again.

I think you probably have a process or two still hanging around.  Do
"ps auxww | grep postgres" (or local equivalent) and look for processes
that are/were children of the old postmaster or one of the subsequent
attempts.  Get rid of 'em with kill -9.

Once you are certain there are none left, "rm -rf" the database
directories and rerun initdb.

(Of course this'd be a lot harder if you were trying to preserve data,
but since there's nothing to preserve, you may as well take the brute
force approach.)

            regards, tom lane