Thread:Project:Support desk/Gigabytes of data taken up by MySQL database for mediawiki installation/reply (8)

Okay, awesome -- I found the ability to SSH and that helped mightily. I backed up accidentally the users & userpages only, and it is a huge file even in .xml, ugh. Anyway, I also backed up NS_MAIN and with only the most recent versions of all the pages.

I want to be clear though, deleting the database and start from scratch, and importing, should I uninstall my mediawiki installation, reinstall it, then figure out how to import the data? That would clean everything up for sure, but I'm not sure if that's what you're saying. I CAN delete just mdw1 database, but I'm not sure if that's the right way. Stuff I've googled up seems to be addressing other things, but I'm not positive at all.

May I get some sort of step-by-step for what to do with my NS_MAIN .xml backup, and a backup of my LocalSettings.php (with no user creation allowed anymore) without totally screwing up? Feel free to assume I'm an idiot with access to SSH now, phpMyAdmin, and a lot of cPanel stuff and direct file editing.