Effectively you woul use a cold backup method to copy the mysql datafiles across to a new mysql instance. you can use tar or zip what ever works and you dont have to do all the data(you can ignore mysql table, performance tables etc) or just do the lot thats up to you.

hopefully her mysql was set for innodb 1 file per table. so u should see a directory openvpms with a stack of files inside it representing the tables.

follow the myqsl rules for cold backups and you should be fine. (make sure you copy the ibdata files as well (see the docs))

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-backup-excerpt/5.6/en/innodb-backup.html

See the link

make sure you use the same version of mysql for this dont go upgrading

once you have mysql up and running again 

and verify the openvpms data is present.

the the next step would be reinstall tomcat deploy openvpms 1.7 run the 

sql upgrade scripts defined in the package 

upgrate/db/migrate1.6-1.7.sql 

on the existing database. 

load the new 1.7 archetypes 

deploy the war to tomcat.

you can find this stuff in the README.txt that comes in the 1.7 package.

OH and finally configure a mysql backup solution for her  I backup my system atleast daily using mysqldump but I have a slave system that keeps an exact parrellell copy as well for failover in under 5minutes downtown (potentialy less depending how fast I can execute my failover script)

Good luck

you can contact me offlist at 

ben at charltonfamily.com.au if you need more help.