diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 20348359a4..7d9bf1115c 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
 /target
-/tmp_check/
+/tmp_check
 /tmp_install
+/tmp_check_cli
diff --git a/control_plane/src/compute.rs b/control_plane/src/compute.rs
index 9de4a3b8c6..10e75ec5cb 100644
--- a/control_plane/src/compute.rs
+++ b/control_plane/src/compute.rs
@@ -198,9 +198,11 @@ impl PostgresNode {
         // initialize data directory
 
         if self.is_test {
-            fs::remove_dir_all(self.pgdata().to_str().unwrap())?;
+            fs::remove_dir_all(self.pgdata().to_str().unwrap()).ok();
         }
 
+        fs::create_dir_all(self.pgdata().to_str().unwrap())?;
+
         let initdb_path = self.env.pg_bin_dir().join("initdb");
         let initdb = Command::new(initdb_path)
             .args(&["-D", self.pgdata().to_str().unwrap()])
diff --git a/control_plane/src/local_env.rs b/control_plane/src/local_env.rs
index 4ec4a82a50..265d28629e 100644
--- a/control_plane/src/local_env.rs
+++ b/control_plane/src/local_env.rs
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ pub fn init() -> Result<()> {
     // ok, we are good to go
 
     // create dirs
-    let data_dir = cargo_path.join("tmp_check");
+    let data_dir = cargo_path.join("tmp_check_cli");
 
     for &dir in &["compute", "pageserver"] {
         fs::create_dir_all(data_dir.join(dir))
@@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ pub fn load_config() -> Result<LocalEnv> {
 
 // local env for tests
 pub fn test_env() -> LocalEnv {
-    let data_dir = Path::new(env!("CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR")).join("tmp_check");
+    let data_dir = Path::new(env!("CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR")).join("../tmp_check");
     fs::create_dir_all(data_dir.clone()).unwrap();
     LocalEnv {
         data_dir,