Backup MySQL databases to external hard drive then restore I have some issues with my new ASUS laptop. I'm running on Windows 10 and the helpdesk told me that they will reset the computer with it's original OS (Windows 8.1).

I run PHP 5.6.22 over fast CGI and PHP 7.0 over fast CGI with MySQL 5.7 on my local machine.

IIS : 10.0.10586.0

I use phpmyadmin 4.6.2

Does anybody have an idea how to export my databases to an external HDD and recover them after on my computer after a possible format of my PC?

Exporting them through phpmyadmin is really long because I have some large databases.

If someone have an idea or some links to share I will really appreciate your help.

I just use my databases, but I don't know anything about this kind of issue.
I've some innoDB DB, but I'm not sure about all the DB types.

I think that copy and paste my db's folder will not help...am I wrong?
Use mysqldump from the command line.

For example, to dump all your databases to a file, use the --all-databases switch and a result file for output:

mysqldump [options] --all-databases --result-file=dump.sql


If the DBs are big, you can split them out into their own files. The dump command is flexible like that.

(Ref: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysqldump.html)

To restore, all you have to do is run the dump file as a script, which you can also do from the command line.