Restoring MySQL Databases when reinstalling Wamp

Question

I am attempting to restore my old databases to a new Wamp installation. However, I did not take a backup of Mysql files before I did this. Thankfully the uninstallation has not deleted all the files, but in my data folder I have :

1) All the databases (As folders)

2) auto.cnf

There are no ib* files in the old folder. Is it still possible to restore my databases somehow?

I have tried to replace the entire mysql5.6.17 folder (there has been no change of version between the installations), but Wamp remains orange and never turns green.

If I replace only the data folder, the MySQL service starts, I can see the databases, but not the tables.

If I change the path in my.ini to point to the old wamp's data folder, I cannot see the old databases at all.

EDIT : Was experimenting a bit, copying the database folders directly into the new Wamp's data folder allows me to get a list of all the tables properly, but there is no actual data in the tables, and trying to query it using MySQLWorkbench gives me the error :

Error Code: 1146. Table 'testdb.users' doesn't exist

EDIT 2 : Found this in the error log file in my data folder :

2014-08-03 06:24:46 25164 [Warning] InnoDB: Cannot open table testdb/users from the internal data dictionary of InnoDB though the .frm file for the table exists. See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/innodb-troubleshooting.html for how you can resolve the problem.

As I thought, its a problem with InnoDB's own mapping. Is there a way to resolve this manually?

Answer 1

If you created an INNODB database, and made no other config changes to store the actual data in seperate table spaces then all the actual data for that INNODB databases will have been stored in the \wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.6.17\ibdata1 file.

If you do not have that file from the old install then your data is lost.

There will also be info in a \wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.6.17\data\DATA_BASE_NAME\ folder, one .frm file for each table that was in the database, but this is basically just schema information and not actual data.

For future reference, InnoDB Backup and Recovery