Restarting, ownership, and permissions

I run my Postgres DB on a virtual linux server where I don't have root.
I'm 'admin', by default, and have created a 'postgres' user to own the DB
dir.

My problem is that on occassion, my ISP restarts my server, stranding all
my processes. While I have scripts to restart Apache and my Servlet
engine on reboot, I don't know how to get the Postgres DB up and running
again. The main problem is that the dir is owned (postgres.postgres) and
chmod'd to 700, keeping anyone but the 'postgres' user from starting it
up.

I tried chownin'g the DB dir to postgres.admin, and chmodding to 770, but
when I tried to start the DB, I got a fatal error in the log indicating
that postgres must own the dir, and the permissions must be u=rwx. What
can I do?

Thanks,
Zeb