Greetings everyone. I am not a tech neophyte by any means but honestly MySql etc is not my normal arena of operation. I have been tasked to develop a replacement website to an existing online one and they want it done in Wordpress. After researching how to do this I found this great Xampp program that allows me to accomplish this locally then when finished I can replace the outdated current online one.
I really like your program and found it very easy to install, configure and start using following your instructions. So off I went designing and such and at the end of the day I opened the Xampp control panel and stopped both Apache as well as the MySql service and closed everything down. The next day I went to restart Xampp and the services and Apache always seems to start no issue but then MySql would not start. I checked the log and saw the list of errors with notes about issues with tables and database files etc and had no idea how to fix it. I read a post online that deleting a file associated with the database or tables would allow MySql to start which I did then it did allow MySql to start but my website was then gone and had to redo the Wordpress install and start over. Since I was barely into development of the site I figured I may as well just redo the process of installing Xampp and start from scratch so I uninstalled everything and did from beginning again. Started Xampp redid creating database etc steps and then installed Wordpress and once again started creating my site. Again at the end of the day I shutdown Apache and MySql services and the following day went to start work and again Apache started fine but MySql once again had issues, different issues with ports or permissions or something and once again unable to work on my site.
So, sorry about this wall of text, what I want to know is there a proper startup and shutdown procedure i should follow to prevent this from occurring? As I said I am very early on in my work but if I get 95% done with everything and then it is lost I will probably jump out the window! Or is there a way to backup key files that can be used to replace ones that may become corrupted? As I said I really like Xampp and the fact that it allows me to work locally but these issues I have been having are making me scared to try again. I know I am instructed to copy the error log file contents and post them so you would be able to see specifically what the issue is and I would do again if it continues but I just want to first eliminate the possibility that is noob user error on my part with basic program operation. Again sorry for the long winded post and I thank you all for any help or advice that you may be able to provide to help this old nerd use your great program to accomplish my tasks.
Operating System I use is Windows Vista Ultimate if that makes any difference.