How to save MariaDB's databases?

Question

Our hard disk, with Mageia 3, got a bad block problem. We can still read it, but not boot on it. I installed this disk as secondary disk (on another computer working with Fedora 20 Gnome). I would like to save the databases (containing Drupal websites) of the old disk, so I installed mariadb and phpmyadmin packages on a new booting hard disk with Mageia 4, set up the same password as for the old disk (I don't know where MariaDB password is stored), copied the configuration file /etc/my.cnf and the folder /var/lib/mysql to the new disk. But mysqld refuses to start. I get

# systemctl status mysqld.service
mysqld.service - MySQL database server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mysqld.service; enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Wed 2014-03-12 18:08:35 ULAT; 2s ago
  Process: 20618 ExecStartPost=/usr/sbin/mysqld-wait-ready $MAINPID (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Process: 20245 ExecStart=/usr/bin/mysqld_safe --nowatch (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 20228 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/mysqld-prepare-db-dir (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 20617 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: Failed to start MySQL database server.
Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: Unit mysqld.service entered failed state.
Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: mysqld.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart.
Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: Stopping MySQL database server...
Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: Starting MySQL database server...
Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: mysqld.service start request repeated too quickly, refusing to start.
Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: Failed to start MySQL database server.
Mar 12 18:08:35 Dell-graphist systemd[1]: Unit mysqld.service entered failed state.

Or is it better, in my Fedora computer, to configure MariaDB to read the old disk databases and to produce a .sql file? If so, how to configure MariaDB for this ?

Thank you if you can help.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 24 '15 at 13:04

biz -- I think you can try to do the dump following this method:

MYSQLDUMP without the password prompt

If you have access to the file system and server, you can use dump to put the database stuff some where ready for recovery.

I'm not sure if this approach also works when starting the daemon. It is worth a try if you are still wanting to save your stuff.

Another less 'interesting' option is to do a deep copy of the whole mysql/mariadb folder. You need to change ownership of the target folder after copying to be "mysql:mysql" and change your mysql config to point to the new location.

Use start and see if the server will come-up on the cloned directory? You may still find problems on some queries if there's a hole in the (origin) disk. Either way you ought to be able to just dump to a text file stream as long as you get a server working.

How to save MariaDB's databases?

1 Answers1