What will I lose if I reinstall PMS?

Plex Media Server
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My Windows machine running PMS now fails to boot. I can access all of the files but I am wondering what I will lose if I just decide to start over. Trying to decide which is the simpler task.

I have all of my media on two NAS so I can quickly add that to a new setup but I assume I will lose the following information:

  • User sharing (I’ll have to share my new server with my family)
  • View history including what has already been watched by whom and when
  • Artwork that was manually added or explicitly selected in the UI
  • A few descriptions etc. that I wrote myself because the content wasn’t on IMDB/TVDB
  • Playlists (though I don’t think I had any)
  • Collections in their entirety
  • Live TV & DVR scheduling

Is any of that incorrect? What am I forgetting that may be a pain to redo? The worst part about this sounds like typing up descriptions which weren’t in TVDB. If I could find those and copy/paste them then, overall, it seems doable.

Any thoughts? I know others out there have done this before and may have some advice for the second time around.

Thanks

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If you can access the old system hard drive and save both the Plex data folder and the old registry branch of Plex server, then you won’t lose anything.
For an even smoother experience, give the new Windows installation the same local IP address which the old installation/machine had.

There is a way to access old registry hives, even if the Windows system doesn’t run anymore – as long as you can access the old system drive: https://jchornsey.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/accessing-another-windows-computers-registry-from-a-disk-in-windows-8-1/

If you cannot access the old registry anymore and can only save the plex data folder, you will lose at least the shares. You will have to grant all your sharees access to your new server. (But there is no new invitation necessary. Your old sharees will still appear in your “friends” list, so you can quickly edit each one and grant access to the new libraries.)

If you can’t even save the full plex data folder, but only the primary Plex database file, you will only be able to save the primary libraries, and a good part of the primary metadata. Posters, soundprints, series intros, and in-depth analysis data however will be lost. https://support.plex.tv/articles/202485658-restore-a-database-backed-up-via-scheduled-tasks/

For all the above it is important, to use the same access method for the media files themselves.
If you had assigned drive letters to your SMB file shares, use the same drive letters now again.
Don’t change either folder names nor file names during the transition.

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I’m back up and running, thanks for laying this out so clearly! I did have to manually copy over the Registry entries because it was giving me an error when importing. But everything looks as it should now. without much effort.

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