Are you really sure you lost your database? To not able to connect to it doesn't mean it got lost! It might depend on your server where MySQL is. I think something /var/mysql/'databasename'

I am a newbie as well but I learned so much in the past four weeks as I had to move a website to a new server and was attacked since then, but it looks like I managed the transfer and survived all attacks to the server and the server seems now be secure.

Import is to have always a backup of the httpdocs (xoops-root) directory and a working backup of your database, done at the same day/time. I do with mysqldump, an php tool for the database and well a simple tar/gzip for the files. I always have to hide mysqldumer so, as some directories need to have 777 as permission.