How can I completely reinstall mysql?

I had to reboot in the middle of a large data import. I only have one mysql database, which has now been corrupted.

How can I completely remove mysql and reinstall it? I’ve tried apt-get purge mysql-server, then removing /var/lib/mysql/* and reinstalling, but apt-get does not prompt me for a root name and password nor does it recreate the /var/lib/mysql files. How can I reinstall?

Answers:

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Method 1

You should do the following:

apt-get purge mysql-server mysql-common mysql-client-<version>
rm -rf /var/lib/mysql
rm -rf /etc/mysql*

Then you can reinstall in full.

Method 2

It’s much easier to execute this:

sudo mysqld --initialize

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0