"Dion Almaer" <dion(at)almaer(dot)com> writes:
> When we try to import the data from a SQL_ASCII dumped db, into the new
> UNICODE db, everything freaks out.
I'm no expert on this stuff, but I think what you need to do is add
set client_encoding = sql_ascii;
to the top of the dump file. (As of fairly recently, pg_dump will
automatically add such a SET, but I'm pretty sure 7.4.2 won't.)
If that doesn't help, then what you have is actually not valid UTF-8
data, and what you'll have to do is figure out what encoding it's in and
specify that instead. If it's in a mishmash of different encodings,
you're in for some pain :-(
regards, tom lane