Sorry for my newbiest condition but I need to make this question.

Recently I format my box, in the box I had some Postgresql Databases, as I understand the data of all that databases were in /var/lib/pgsql directory (SuSE distro) so I simply backup that dir doing a cp to another machine. Well until here all fine.

I format my Linux partition and reinstall the packages, including Postgres, after that I try to make a simple copy (cp) of the backuped dir into the directory /var/lib/pgsql, overwriting the new dir and I thought that all will be ok. FALSE it doesn work, in fact POstgres not even start.

So I have desinstalled Postgres and reinstall again, I try to start and start OK. My question, how can I put the old backup data in the new installation?.

This were tests databases but I would like not to create all of them again.

Thanks in advance.

Melvin