The situation: old laptop crashed for good, i.e. motherboard is fried. The HD is perfectly readable though, and I have a rather large database in there (~2 million hands).

The problem: I "smartly" unchecked the "move hands to Processed folder" in pokertracker looong time ago, 'cause I figured the HUD would run smoother. So, the only place where my database still exists is in a bunch of postgres-generated files and directories.

The question: is it possible to somehow recover this old database? I tried to copy the postgres directory tree on a different box with pokertracker installed and all, but it didn't work.

Moral of the story: NEVER uncheck the "move processed files" box! :-)

Did you install the same version of PostgreSQL? If you were using 8.3 on the old machine you'd need to use 8.3 on the new machine - it should pick up the database though.

Yes I did. The version was 8.3 on both machines. I copied the old "Data" directory that is within the postgres/8.3 folder over the one in the new machine, but when I fired up pokertracker it (I mean postgres) said that it couldn't connect to the server. When I exited pokertracker after that, the contents I copied into the "Data" directory earlier were gone...

Oh well, this looks FUBAR but of course it's not pokertracker's fault. This experience makes me love already the new backup feature that you introduced in the latest beta version!

If you didn't have 'move processed files to' enabled then PT3 wouldn't have moved the files, but it wouldn't have deleted them either - did you delete them yourself?
Do you still have the original Data folder on the old disk?

In that case the files would just remain in the Pokerstars handhistory folder, but I had it set for the history to be there for 1 day at most.

OK, I see.
We recommend having 'move processed files to' enabled - this does not slow the import down as files are not moved until you stop the import.
You can also use File > Backup to backup your databases and configuration from time to time.