postgres xlog crashes - recovery procedure

Hello,

I'm trying to recover database(after a crash). postgres is failing to
start complaining on missing transaction log file :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: database system was interrupted at 2002-10-17 23:24:45 PST
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: ReadRecord: out-of-sequence SUI 220 (after 221) in log file 4, segment 111,
offset 450560
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: invalid primary checkpoint record
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: open of /pg_xlog/000000040000006E (log file 4, segment 110) faile
d: No such file or directory
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: invalid secondary checkpoint record
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] FATAL 2: unable to locate a valid checkpoint record
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: proc_exit(2)
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: shmem_exit(2)
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2247] DEBUG: exit(2)
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2244] DEBUG: reaping dead processes
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2244] DEBUG: startup process (pid 2247) exited with exit code 2
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2244] DEBUG: aborting startup due to startup process failure
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2244] DEBUG: proc_exit(1)
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2244] DEBUG: shmem_exit(1)
2002-10-22 14:53:17 [2244] DEBUG: exit(1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm aware of contrib/pg_resetxlog but this does not seem to be reliable tool.
Are there any postgres specific recovery procedures and /or documentation on how
to prevent such situations?

Thanks,

ak.