Salvaging IM5 DB after a calamitous crash and pending re-install

[reader]

I've managed to invoke a major crash of my main desktop which is (or was)  a high powered laptop (in its day).

So anyway, it appears I will be re-installing win 7 from scratch.

I am able to retrieve any files I might want without too much trouble and wondered if I should retreive IM3 and IM5 data bases.

I will be re-installing both after the rebuild so should I just let IM build itself a new one?.  I did have quite a few categories and other work on going before the crash.

If it seems wise to retrieve whatever. . ., can anyone tell me what I should make sure gets saved?  I am intertaining the notion of compressing the whole works of the system C drive and moving it onto another drive.  I have space and the time.... But, that is quite a lot of compressing and moving.... it would be about 200 GB for the whole disk the OS is on.  And I would still need to know what to get out of there later.

Fortunately, I always kept my actual hierarch of photos on a separate data drive so those are fine.

[JohnZeman]

If IM5 wasn't running, or at least writing to the database when you had your system crash, I would think there would be a fairly good chance that your database is still intact.  Certainly worth a try.

Several months ago when IM5 was crashing a lot for me, I got in the habit (and still am) of exporting what's important, at least to me, certainly things from my database on a regular basis.  Here's what I export:

Categories.
Thumbnail Layouts.
File Window Tips.
Metadata Panel Layouts.
Metadata Templates.
Attributes.

[Mario]

See also the Backup topic in the IMatch 5 help to see which files to backup (or, in this case, to secure from the old disk).
Unless you have created your own templates or scripts, you only need the settings database (imatch5.pts) and the IMatch 5 database.