HD Crashed- need help to rebuild calibre

[markbnj]

OK this may be easy or not..
Have a pc that came with win11 installed (win11 works fine)

Being lazy. I was running off the HD with win10 from my old PC.

1. Probem: win10 no longer boots, or is repairable
2. have a # of drives on system, all now working

OK. so: I have booted from win11 (was D: drive, now C: drive)
my old win10 drive (now is the D drive) is still there.

I need to get help to find where my books are:
any suggestions, or file I can find?

I am hoping that I can create a new directory for ALL calibre stuff on a drive different than c (or d) so that it can be better managed.

thanks in advance!!!

[theducks]

search for metadata.db
A normal Library will have lots of Author folders.
THAT ENTIRE FOLDER IS YOU LIBRARY.
Just copy the folder to its new home. The folder name is the Library name. When I move it I changed the default name to 'Main' (pick a name).
All you need to do in Calibre is point it at whatever Library you want to use.
Create/Switch: Use EXISTING: <choose new home>

But before that, consider replacing the configuration folder with the old one.
From a command prompt

cd %appdata%\Calibre

to see where it is on your new system. Should be in a similar location on the old drive

[markbnj]

Originally Posted by theducks

search for metadata.db


From a command prompt

cd %appdata%\Calibre

to see where it is on your new system. Should be in a similar location on the old drive

OK: so that helps
old {win10 drive}Users\mdesk\AppData\Roaming\Calibre
new {win10 drive}Users\mdesk\AppData\Roaming\Calibre


But, I just remembered my original book directory was on my G drive (still good)
so
Is there a configuration file I can set so that EVERYTHING can live in one directory (ex: G:\calibre\config and G:\calibre\authors )?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by markbnj

OK: so that helps
old {win10 drive}Users\mdesk\AppData\Roaming\Calibre
new {win10 drive}Users\mdesk\AppData\Roaming\Calibre


But, I just remembered my original book directory was on my G drive (still good)
so
Is there a configuration file I can set so that EVERYTHING can live in one directory (ex: G:\calibre\config and G:\calibre\authors )?

That folder in AppData/Roaming named Calibre is the configuration - there is no single file. And no, that folder must be in the same location on your new drive, else it won't work.

[BetterRed]

Calibre expects the configuration data dirtectory to be at %appdata%\calibre (e.g. C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\calibre), but this can be overridden with the CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY Environment variable.

BR

[markbnj]

ok, so will be in same directory, will I eventually be able to change it?
and missed the reference to metadata.db (I am guessing searching for that will help me find ALL of the calibre configurations on my disks.)
Thanks again for the quick answers.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by markbnj

ok, so will be in same directory, will I eventually be able to change it?
and missed the reference to metadata.db (I am guessing searching for that will help me find ALL of the calibre configurations on my disks.)
Thanks again for the quick answers.

That finds LIBRARIES

There is only 1 (per) user configuration. These are the genera, non-specific to a Library. ( Different Libraries can have different columns and settings. Those are IN the DB)

[chaley]

It seems that the OP should use calibre portable. With it library and config folder are in the same place.