How to recover a MySQL database: Incorrect information in file: './xxx.frm'

Question

A very important database has gone corrupt that was sitting on server at a shared web host, and I didn't back up. The table contains a large list of very important email addresses. I can get a table listing, but if I open any of the tables with Navicat or phpMyAdmin, I get the following error:

Incorrect information in file: './the-table-name.frm'

I was able to get a hold of the .frm files associated with the database from the web host.

There is other data in there, but if I could at least get the email addresses, I would be alright.

How do I recover this database? I would be willing to pay somebody to fix this.

Answer 1

This belongs on serverfault.

First, .FRM files contain none of your "data". They are simply the definition of the table.

If all of the following are true:

• The table is using the MyISAM storage engine
• You know the CREATE TABLE statement required to recreate the table

Then, do the following:

1. Stop MySQL
2. Backup your table_name.frm, table_name.MYI, table_name.MYD files
3. Delete them from your mysql data directory (/var/lib/mysql usually)
4. Start MySQL
5. CREATE the table again
6. Stop MySQL
7. Copy the .MYD and .MYI files back into the datadir, replacing the ones there.
8. Start MySQL
9. ???
10. Profit