SQL for beginners! How do you backup and restore a db?

[Derision]

I do my backups/restores via the command prompt.

To backup, use mysqldump. My database in this example is called ykesha rather than peq, so wherever you see ykesha, change it to peq or whatever you called your database:

C:\Users\Steve>mysqldump -u root -p ykesha > ykesha-backup.sql
Enter password: ******

C:\Users\Steve>

Your entire database is now backed up to the file called ykesha-backup.sql It's a text file, so you can browse through it with notepad.

In the event you wanted to restore that backup, you would go into the mysql command line tool, drop the database and re-create it (empty) and then source in the backup you made earlier, e.g.:

C:\Users\Steve>mysql -u root -p
Enter password: ******
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 5
Server version: 5.1.31-community MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> drop database ykesha;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> create database ykesha;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> use ykesha;
Database changed
mysql> source ykesha-backup.sql


<lots of output snipped>

Also, your syntax for changing loregroups is fine. You can omit the `PEQ` prefix if you execute the use peq command first, e.g.:

C:\Users\Steve>mysql -u root -p
Enter password: ******
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 6
Server version: 5.1.31-community MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> use peq
Database changed
mysql> update items set loregroup = 0;
Query OK, 33176 rows affected (1.91 sec)
Rows matched: 76214  Changed: 33176  Warnings: 0

mysql>