can I restore a mysql databse with just a backup of /var/lib/mysql?

[Joseph Neal <vlvtelvis@speakeasy.net>]

Hi All

My host managed to kill my virtual server while migrating it from one machine 
to another.  They were able to give me the up to date contents of /var /etc 
and /home and a new server with a fresh etch install on it.    Will it work 
if I just copy over the contents of /var/lib/mySQL?

I've been lax on making SQL dumps so I stand to lose a few weeks of data if I 
can't make this work