restoring mysql database
 

i had a situation where supposively my VPS (virtual private server) that i rent was compromised and used to send phishing emails by someone. so the people who host it shut off my vps, and they backed up all the information on it and required that the vps be "rebuilt"

well its great that i have a backup of the whole server, but i dont know how to get my mysql data back, its somewhere within the whole backup (itsa backup of the whole file system)

how can i copy this over to my newly installed mysql 5 server?

edit: btw there is no /usr/local/mysql directory as alot of google results siad there would be. it was installed using Yum on CentOS4.

edit again: there seems to be stuff inside /var/lib/mysql which maybe is the same thing where google results talked about /usr/local/mysql but im not sure. any help is appreciated, thanks

edit a third time: can i just copy over the .frm and other files in the directires like that into their respective directories on my new server? or will it not work like that? - it seems to be working but is there any possible issues that arent easily visible in result of doing this?

In my installation of MySQL (SuSE 9.3 Pro), in /etc/init.d/mysql, the file contains this information:

You should have a similar file somewhere in /etc. Notice the 'datadir' line. It will tell your where your databases are stored.

Remember, this is on my system. Your system may be set up differently.

well i found the files in /var/lib/mysql just i dont know how to use the files to insert into my new database. just copying turns out to not work