File (FRM) not found? Cant view the tables?

Question

I have 2 version of database backup.

Mysqldump > db_backup.sql

&

FRM files (tables files)

The db_backup.sql file is corrupted, 0 kb, I think I cant help with it anymore.

Now I only have the FRM files. After I copy all the FRM files to my database folder. In phpmyadmin, I got this message: File not found 'users' errno2

'Users' is one of the important tables, I cant lose it. Is there anyway to repair the FRM files? The files are there, why it says "File not found"?

Answer 1

The .frm files don't contain the data, the .ibd files have the data, if you have 'innodb_file_per_table' in the my.cnf file. If you don't have 'innodb_file_per_table' in the my.cnf file the data is in the 'ibdata1' file. The .frm are the table format files. They have the info about the columns in the table. If all you have are .frm files, your data is gone.