Re: backing up corrupt database

<terry@ashtonwoodshomes.com> writes:
> When I try to drop this corrupted table:
> devtest2=# drop table projects;
> ERROR:  cannot find attribute 8 of relation projects

Sounds like a mess.  What PG version is this?  Do you know what happened
to cause the corruption?

> How can I manually purge this table from the system tables so that I can run
> a backup and then recreate the database?

If you do not care about this table, then "DELETE FROM pg_class WHERE
relname = 'projects'" would do it.

If you do care, I'd try a system-table reindex (read the REINDEX man
page carefully) before giving up on it.  The problem is probably just
corruption in one of the indexes on pg_attribute.

            regards, tom lane