having trouble restoring a database from files

Hello –

I searched through the archives but didn’t find a solution to the exact situation I am in – please help if you can.

had a server go down (running RHEL3), don’t have one of my databases backed up, but have the /var/lib/pgsql/ directory backed up.

I set up a new server and installed postgres on it, then untar’d my /var/lib/pgsql files into the new server, to attempt to restore the databases, but now postgresql won’t start.

[root@ew root]# service rhdb start

Starting PostgreSQL - Red Hat Edition service:             [FAILED]

Any ideas on what might be preventing the service from starting?

Thanks!

Josh