I got tired of it and installed xampp...which does the same thing for me

There is still an empty xampplite folder on my computer, but what happened to the database? Is there any way to get it back? I ask because there was a lot of important stuff in there that I really would like to have back, lest hours of work is lost.
The other issue I have, still, is that cache seems to never clear for me; even on my older computer it didnt. My older computer was Windows XP (it's fried now), the one I use currently has Vista home premium.
I mean, I would really like to be using xampp for my production, but I'm forced to do it online because the changes I make are ignored
