Title: old phpmyadmin on another drive
Last modified: August 30, 2016

---

# old phpmyadmin on another drive

 *  [JukeBoxWhiz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jukeboxwhiz/)
 * (@jukeboxwhiz)
 * [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/old-phpmyadmin-on-another-drive/)
 * Hello. I was developing a site on a localhost installation through xampp.
 * Then my computer died. This was a laptop and I got usb adapter so I could at 
   least access the harddrive.
 * Then I reinstalled xampp and wordpress on the C drive of my current computer.
 * But, my old phpadmin is now on the E drive and I don’t know how I can open it
   to retrieve some of the old pages I was working on. Using the xampp control panel
   only lets me get the phpadmin on my C drive.
 * Does anyone know how it can be done that you can get the phpadmin that is stored
   on another drive through another xampp installation?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [Dion](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diondesigns/)
 * (@diondesigns)
 * [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/old-phpmyadmin-on-another-drive/#post-6775117)
 * phpMyAdmin will not solve your problem; that is an application to manage databases.
 * You are looking for your old database. That would have been stored in your old
   XAMPP installation wherever it installed MySQL. Usually it will be a directory
   named **mysql**, and that directory will contain directories named **bin** and**
   data** (possibly among others). If you find it, look in the **data** directory
   for a directory with the same name as your old database. Let’s call it _old\_db_.
   Now look in that directory. If you see any files with the extension **.ibd**,
   that database is gone forever. If there are no **.ibd** files, then there is 
   hope, and read the next paragraph.
 * Now go to your current XAMPP installation and repeat the process to locate the
   MySQL **data** directory. Once you find it, copy the _old\_db_ directory from
   your old XAMPP installation to the **data** firectory in your new XAMPP installation.
   If you are a very lucky person, that database should show up without errors in
   your new phpMyAdmin.
 * The reason those **.ibd** files are a problem is that it means you are using 
   InnoDB tables. Under normal circumstances, InnoDB is great. But they have a few
   drawbacks, the most serious being that all data is lost forever if the InnoDB
   ibdata file becomes invalid (which happens when you re-install XAMPP).
 * In my opinion, every localhost installation (XAMPP, MAMP, WAMP, whatever) should
   have the following line in their MySQL configuration file:
 *     ```
       default-storage-engine=MyISAM
       ```
   
 * This will tell MySQL to not use InnoDB to create new tables unless InnoDB is 
   specifically requested. MyISAM tables are slower than InnoDB, but they can be
   recovered if the localhost application must be re-installed.
 *  Thread Starter [JukeBoxWhiz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jukeboxwhiz/)
 * (@jukeboxwhiz)
 * [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/old-phpmyadmin-on-another-drive/#post-6775151)
 * Hi there. Thanks for your response.
 * Yes, there are .ibd files in the data directory.
 * However, I’m not sure what you mean by the XAMPP reinstall. I did not reinstall
   XAMPP on the old drive. Rather I installed it on the drive of my current computer.
   The other drive, the external one, still has it’s original XAMPP installation.
 * I don’t know if this really makes a difference, but at this point I’m hoping 
   against hope because that was a lot of work and it will take a bit of time to
   replicate it.
 *  [Dion](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diondesigns/)
 * (@diondesigns)
 * [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/old-phpmyadmin-on-another-drive/#post-6775165)
 * Hmm. if that’s what you did, then I have another suggestion. Rename the MySQL**
   data** directory in your new XAMPP installation, and then copy the MySQL **data**
   directory from your old XAMPP installation.
 * As long as the old MySQL **data** directory did not get corrupted, this will 
   work. However, it will restore all MySQL user data from your old installation,
   so make sure you remember the password you originally set for the root DB user!(
   Note that it is possible to reset the root password, but doing so is well beyond
   the scope of this support board.)
 * Good luck!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘old phpmyadmin on another drive’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [phpadmin](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/phpadmin/)
 * [xampp](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/xampp/)

 * In: [Localhost Installs](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/localhost-installs/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Dion](https://wordpress.org/support/users/diondesigns/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/old-phpmyadmin-on-another-drive/#post-6775165)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics