By roper. on

Hello,

So I am currently running Drupal 5.1, and I obviously should upgrade. The reason I haven't done so is that when I first started using Drupal, I hacked some core files (only a few, and only minor changes that I'm not worried about anymore). Also, before I knew about backing up a database, I had installed some modules to try them out, some I didn't like, so I turned them off. BUT, they still have tables in MySQL and some of them are affecting certain aspects of the site. Specifically, some image modules that I had installed, and since turned off, are still somehow keeping user pictures from being scaled down upon upload if they're too big, among other things.

So my question is this: If I want a fresh install of the current version of Drupal so I can start over with just the modules I know I need (and not hack core this time), how do I do that but still retain all user info, user pics, private message data, and buddylist data, in order to re-insert that stuff after upgrading.

Does that make sense? Please help me with this issue. I also have 2 other topics that didn't get any replies. :-(
http://drupal.org/node/217293
http://drupal.org/node/215320
Any help on those two would also be appreciated, but this is the big one.

Thank you very much.

Comments

hagrin’s picture

hagrin commented

Well, if this was my site, what I would suggest doing is -

1) Trying to identify all the changes you made before you do anything.
2) Make a list of all the modules that you have inactivated and want to not move over to the fresh install.
3) Examine those module's files to see exactly what SQL statements were run and which tables were affected.
4) If new tables were created without modifying core tables, then you could a) backup tables first (just in case) and then 2) delete the unnecessary tables.

That would be a good place to start and that's what I would do - not sure if that's the "preferred" approach or not.
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http://www.hagrin.com - Just my little slice of the Interweb

roper.’s picture

roper. commented

Okay, thank you hagrin.

I wonder if it would be any easier to simply save the tables that I do want to keep..? I have more modules that I don't want, than ones I do. Currently, the only info I want to save is the user date (names, emails, passwords, pictures, and custom profile data), along with privatemsg data and buddylist data, and my blocks too. I currently only have ~20 users, all of which are friends or family (though I certainly plan on expanding my user base). I'm not worried about saving any node data because I only have 2 static pages which I could rewrite, and a couple forum topics that I made just to test, but I can redo those as well.

So can I export the SQL data from the users, users_roles, profile_fields, profile_values, privatemsg_*, buddylist_*, and blocks tables, then delete everything, do a fresh install of Drupal 5.7, and re-import those specific tables..?

The reason I'd rather do it this way is that I want a fresh install, and I'm going to start my theme over as well because I could do it better, but I want to retain all the important info. The other modules I have installed, I can reinstall and reconfigure those separately, I'm not worried about their SQL data.

Would this be a reasonable way to go about it? Thank you.

hagrin’s picture

hagrin commented

If you're comfortable with restoring only certain tables that contain info you need, you can definitely try that approach. I would suggest reading this other post - http://drupal.org/node/217386 - which is very similar (fresh DB install, trying to restore only certain content, etc.) and another poster cautioned against this approach especially if you have overreaching modules installed like CCK.

Good luck.
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http://www.hagrin.com - Just my little slice of the Interweb