When Do You Need PDU?

Explore PostgreSQL recovery scenarios and choose a method based on surviving sources.

PostgreSQL data recovery overview

Read-only source scanning

PostgreSQL 10–18

Open source and free

Files and Instances

Recover readable data from surviving data files.

Database Won’t Start?

Recover data when a PostgreSQL instance cannot start because of severe damage.

Damaged Data Files Make a Table Unreadable?

Extract readable data from corrupted PostgreSQL data files, skipping damaged pages.

Logs and History

Use preserved WAL to recover data before accidental changes.

Data Deleted by Mistake?

Recover deleted rows from a preserved WAL archive or pg_wal copy. Works when DELETE was committed without backup.

Data Updated by Mistake?

Restore original values before unwanted UPDATE operations from WAL files.

Pages and Fragments

Identify unknown files and parse page images and surviving fragments.

Core Capability

Table Dropped or Truncated by Mistake?

Extract surviving data after DROP TABLE through disk-fragment scanning; recovery depends on retained pages and definitions.

Data Files Survive, but Their Tables Are Unknown?

Use Probe and ProbeBatch to identify candidate table definitions, then export with confirmed mappings.

Only a Page Image Survives, with the Data Directory Lost?

Use PDUPlan and RecoverISO to recover data from a PDU page image.

Table Files Are Lost, but Data Remains on Disk?

Preserve surviving pages and distinguish file identification, image recovery, historical layouts and attribution evidence.

Dealing with Data Loss?

PDU provides professional-grade recovery capabilities to help you recover data safely and efficiently.

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