How do I get a clean start for catalog to start all over again?

Question

Running PSE5 on Win XP w/SP3
I have not been able to get any information about how to recover a catalog from files that have been copied as a backup, so it looks like I'm forced to start all over again.  There are about 17000 images in the C: drive.  The images all seem to be OK.  A few days ago there was a properly operating catalog file (and all the others) there, too.
Since then, I have tried to learn how to make the former catalog file operative, but no luck.  Since then, I have read that just uninstalling and reinstalling PSE5 will do nothing to give me a clean start - that is, all the old (now problematical) catalog file trouble will still be there.
To start all over again seems like such a waste of time, since I have copies of all the catalog files as they were properly operating in March, but it seems that something important is missing and none of this stuff is useful in any way.  I'm not the PSE5 user, so I didn't know about the external catalog backup that can be done from within PSE5 - so the possibility to use that technique does not exist.  All I have is a straight copy of everything in the Documents and Settings.. ...Application Data\Adobe folder.  I've tried replacing the whole Adobe folder with the backup files, starting PSE5 and looking at the catalog, but that didn't work either. I just get the same old empty catalog.
So, the 'start all over' option seems like the only way out.  Anyone who has lost the catalog knows how much work is in the catalog, so any help with either making the old catalog file work through reconstruction somehow, or starting all over again, will be very helpful.  Someday, I'd like to learn how this happened.  Until then I'll be backing up the catalog file from within PSE5 to an external location...  Everytime there's a new entry in the catalog information.  That method seems simple enough that even I could do it.
Thanks,
Al
(K3PXR)

Answer 1

I tried to open the resident 'My Catalog.psa' file.  PSE5 dutifully did that and the catalog information, such as tags and other information that would normally be present when looking at the Organizer is blank, as if nothing has ever been entered in the catalog.
The 'My Catalog.psa' file is about 600K (according to windows explorer) and resides in the 'Catalogs' folder.  Also there are:
My Catalog-2.psa  about 3252K
My Catalog-2.psa about 5380K
In the folder: 'Catalog Folders' were the folders:
My Catalog
My Catalog-1
In the folder My Catalog are the files:
  backupCt.dat  1K
  collstatus.dat  1K
  tagstatus.dat  1K
  thumb.5.cache  10K
In the folder My Catalog-1 is the file:
  tn.4.cache  32394 K
Above I say 'In the folder, Catalog Folders, were the folders My Catalog and My Catalog-1' because last night when shutting down, I didn't know what was in those folders.  I was too tired to check.
I did copy everything that was in the Adobe folder and all associated sub folders, including the folders above, to an SD flash card before I started to do anything else.  Becasue of this, I should be able to get back to the way it was before I started to do anything, then I opened the catalog file My Catalog-1.psa.  It said that it was made from an earlier version, asked to convert it and contained the 2002 to 2004 catalog information.  To the best of my knowledge, those photos were never entered in PSE5, and probably were from an earlier version of PS Album. 
So, where is the information that was once in the PSE5 catalog?  Which files should contain that information?  Why can't the files simply be copied from the backup copies back on to the C:\ drive in the proper folders and then upon starting PSE5 see at least the catalog that was present when the copies of the files in the folders above were made?  What dumb mistakes could have been made to overwrite the information in the catalog and make the catalog appear empty?  If I don't learn this, I'll not be able to prevent it from happening again.
I'm not on the machine with the trouble at the moment, and since it is not my machine, I sometimes have trouble getting to it during normal waking hours.  I don't know the exact clicks and keystrokes that got the catalog from its normal function to appearing and functioning as if it is empty..
What exactly are the symptoms of "PSE5 doesn't like..."?  The catalog appears and functions as if it is empty - as if nothing ever has been or ever was entered into it.  PSE5 Organizer is operating normally as far as I can tell.  I cannot seem to locate the former catalog information and it has not loaded the former catalog file information.  A new test catalog was made and it opens and shows the thumbnails of its four images.  I hope that the test catalog I made didn't overwrite anything that would prevent going back to the original catalog information.  The copies of the files can be restored as they were a few months ago, though, because there is a copy of them on an SD card.
Thanks,
Al
(K3PXR)