Backup broken PostgreSQL 8.4 without pg_dump

So. I have a problem. PostgreSQL 8.4 won't start or restart without any output given.

But it worked for 3 monthes until hosting provider doesn't rebooted server. Now it is completly broken. It wan't start and doesn't give any output or log.

pg_dump: [archiver (db)] connection to database "postgres" failed: No such file or directory
    Is the server running locally and accepting
    connections on Unix domain socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"?

Now I want to backup (or just start pgsql socket) my database to reinstall postgesql. How?

Soooo. Here is the solution.

The problem was my postgresql (for some reason :o) didn't have any clusters creates.

So I created one:

pg_createcluster 8.4 main

Now let's find something silimar to old data folder: find / -name 'PG_VERSION'

Here it is – /usr/local/pgsql/data/. Now edit postgresql.conf in your cluster folder.

You have to replace data_directory varaible value with old folder.

Now you can restart your server. Everything will work fine.