How can I reinstall mysql while restoring DBs without mysqldump?

Question

I'm running MySQL v5.7.25 on Ubuntu 16.04.5. Recently I noticed MySQL was not responding to any connects or service restart. I want to just purge the server and reinstall it but I have databases I want to retain and I can't use mysqldump to save them as sql files because I can't connect to mysql.

Is ther a way to do this, restore the files in /var/lib/mysql after a purge / reinstall. I've all ready archived the contents of /var/lib/msysql in a tarball, I just want to know if it's just a simple matter of copying the backedup files into the /var/lib/mysql directory before I pull the trigger.

Answer 1

don't use purge it removes everything. instead use remove

/var/lib/mysql folder stays untouched when you remove by using apt-get remove . D