> I've tried to follow the directions as closely as possible, but still
> the server won't start. I do get a different PANIC:
>
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: database system was shut down at
> 2011-08-26 22:08:35 CEST
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: starting archive recovery
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: restore_command = 'cp
> /var/lib/postgresql/8.3/main/archive/%f %p'
> cp: cannot stat
> `/var/lib/postgresql/8.3/main/archive/00000001.history': No such file
> or directory
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: restored log file
> "0000000100000001000000EE" from archive
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: unexpected pageaddr 1/EB01C000 in log
> file 1, segment 238, offset 114688
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: invalid primary checkpoint record
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: restored log file
> "0000000100000001000000EE" from archive
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: invalid xl_info in secondary checkpoint
> record
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST PANIC: could not locate a valid checkpoint
> record
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: startup process (PID 8975) was
> terminated by signal 6: Aborted
> 2011-08-26 23:55:08 CEST LOG: aborting startup due to startup process
> failure
>
> Somehow I think the database files I used to restore are inconsistent
> with the WAL's. Is there a workaround or am I still doing something
> completely foolish?
OK, did some more testing and it seems the pg_control file that is
residing in my global directory does not match the WAL files. Is it
still possible to recover the data? I came across some pages claiming
you should be able to rebuild the control file from the WAL?