How to rescue a database (that's not backed up!!!) - SOLVED

[Chris2021]

Hey all,

Sharing an experience and solution that hopefully you'll never need.

Scenario
•   Windows 11
•   Computer malfunction. Only working in safe mode.
•   Database not backed up

Fix
1)   Power off the computer
2)   Attach an external hard drive
3)   Open in safe mode
4)   If possible, in Windows Explorer, enable View Hidden Items (i.e. From the menu open View / Show / Hidden Items
5)   Navigate to where MariaDB / MySQL stores the RadioDJ database. Default directory in my case (which is hidden) is C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\Data\Name of Database
6)   Copy the lot!
7)   Alternative (which I did for peace of mind) ask a Computer Technician to transfer the data from the old machine's SSD to your external hard drive. They used specific software and copied the entire disc
8 ) I then paid a MySQL Database guy (who I found on the web advertising data recovery services) to reinstate the database 'as was' on a new machine. This was done in 24 hours.

Naturally it's a lot easier and cheaper to backup ALL your databases daily. We did this for the on-air production machine and occasionally for the test machine. In this case the test machine went down at the wrong moment with a tone of recent updates that were about to be transferred to the live machine. Any other day would have been fine!

Any last tips? Don't delete / reformat the old SSD until everything is working again!