I had a working 2.4.5 site up and running on CentOS 5.6 for several months but have just experienced a total disk failure. I have current file level backups of the entire host (using Bacula) but am at a bit of a loss how to recover. I have an install DVD of CentOS 5.5 but the CentOS mirrors have moved on to 5.7 (5.6 was an online upgrade and included updates to MySQL) so I need start over with a OS version and dB version that is not the one I backed up. It's also too late obviously to do a export from MySQL of my SS site so that it could be re-imported into the new environment. I know you can install a newer version of MySQL and update older data files (I did this when I upgrade to COS 5.6) but will MySQL permit me to overwrite all of its installation dB files with the ones from my backup? In other words, can I just install CentOS 5.7, install Apache, MySQL, and SS 2.4.5, then force MySQL to accept and upgrade my older dB files to recover my site?
Any pearls of wisdom anyone might share would be appreciated - I've tried a couple variations on the above so far w/o success.
Thank you in advance for your time.