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database location

Asked by spidereater
Posted March 20, 2014.

I had a movable type installation on an old computer. The computer died and I wanted to extract the database from the unbootable hardrive. Where is the movable type database typically located? What is the file name? I can access the drive and the images and things but can’t find the database. Any help would be great.

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1 Answer

Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk on March 24, 2014, 4:45 a.m. Reply

The answer to this question depends on the type of database your Movable Type installation was using. Look for a file named mt-config.cgi (typically in the main Movable Type directory). This is a text file that has configuration settings for Movable Type in it, including the settings for which database to use.

Once you know which type of database you were using and what it was named, you can then google around a bit to find out where this particular database type stores its files and how to recover them into another installation.

For a mysql database I found this page in about five seconds of googling: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/484750/restoring-mysql-database-from-physical-files

Of course, your database name is probably going to be different and you might not have been running mysql, but this is one of the more common options so if it is I saved you some time :-)

Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk is an independent Movable Type expert with his own Movable Type services company (YesItCan.be). Before that he worked at Six Apart from 2004 until early 2010. He blogs about Movable Type on his blog Movable Tips.

Website: http://yesitcan.be

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