Need to recreate a Joomla 1.5 site

[jnkody]

Here is my situation. I was provided with a SQL dump (.SQL file) of a Joomla 1.5 web site and then asked if it was possible to recover the site with just the DB.

I have or know the following:

• A SQL dump from the old site.
  A copy of the the template (.zip) used on the site.
  I know it was a Joomla 1.5.x web site, but the "x" is unknown.
  The original site files are gone (hosting account expired, not renewed; account and site files purged; former host not friendly)
  I have a local install of Joomla 1.5.26 running under WAMP Server.

So the question is, is it possible get a working (or partially working) site with just a DB? I have tried a number of suggestions I found online, but so far, no joy.

Any advice or direction from the J! Communinity would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

[jnkody]

A couple of additional details I thought about ...

My client does not necessarily care about getting his entire site back up in its prior state. He is more concerned with getting the Content (articles, cat/sec) and User information. Menus can be recreated manually. Also, most extensions used on the old site probably will not need to come over.

We (well, I) would like to build the new site in J 3.1.x.

[dpacadmin]

Do a local install of Joomla 1.5, do not add the sample data to the site during the install. Add the template and set it as default. Now drop all the tables in the database for the site and Import your SQL file to the site's database.
Joomla 1.5.26

This should get you all the articles for the site and the Section/Category structure. Some stuff may not work without the original extensions being installed that would have been installed on the old site. Also images may be missing as they were in an images folder on the site, not the database.

[jnkody]

Thank you, dpacadmin, for your reply. I will run through what you recommend here, but I believe that is exactly what I did prior to reaching out for assistant (although I may have included the sample data).

I will give it another go ...

One moment, please ...

[jnkody]

Here is the error I get ...

jtablesession::Store Failed
DB function failed with error number 1054
Unknown column 'client_id' in 'field list' SQL=INSERT INTO `jos_session` ( `session_id`,`time`,`username`,`gid`,`guest`,`client_id` ) VALUES ( 'v0gr658bn2gue77jdgc302s8j2','1379195113','','0','1','0' )

[dpacadmin]

When and where do you get the error? Could be a bad cookie stored in the database, you could try truncating the jos_sessions table and see if that fixes it.

[jnkody]

During a Joomla setup, I entered the MySQL info and clicked next. It is at that point I get the error. I found this article (http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=195859) that had me edit the joomla.sql file and did a find/replace on the string TYPE=MyISAM and change it to ENGINE=MyISAM. This is, apparently, a side-affect of using the latest version of MySQL with an ancient version of Joomla ... no worries though. I worked through it.

The good news is, I finally have this working! After straining my eyes on various Apache and PHP logs all afternoon and countless tests, I discovered the SQL dump I was given was missing two fields in the jos_content table ('alias' and 'metadata'). I manually created the fields, export/import again in my test DB and BINGO! I have a working Joomla site.

As a side note, I did not drop the entire DB. I export/imported only the jos_content and jos_content_frontpage tables. I still need to recreate menus, categories, etc., but at this point, the site is sufficiently recovered for my needs.

dpacadmin, your input was extremely helpful in getting me pointed in the right direction. +1 on your Karma.