Recovering from a computer failure

[Robert Pollard]

Hi,

This morning, when I tried to cut on my laptop, it wouldn't come on.

I have put my hard disk in an USB external case and plugged it into a desktop system. I am able to get to all the files on my laptop's hard drive.

Now, what I'm working on is moving the data files over to an existing MySQL instance on the desktop I'm working on so I can get to the data I had on my laptop stored in MySQL.

I thought you could move the data folder over and it would work. I had done that before for an existing database and it worked fine. For a new database that has never been created on the MySQL instance on the desktop it will not recognize the database I'm trying to copy.

I tried to manually create the database and the 3 tables in it. I get one of the 3 tables with data in it. The other 2 don't have data. I do know there was data in them.

What is the best way to simply copy the databases from my laptop's hard drive over to the desktop and see the data?

Thanks!