Here's a good feature request from a.wholelottanothing.org with solution by Brad Choate. Tools for future-proofing MT | A Whole Lotta Nothing

Background for Movable Type users who may not understand the problem being addressed: MovableType doesn't include the IDs for your entries when you export them. If your database crashes and you try to reload it using your last MovableType export, all of the URLs for your entries are likely to change. meta and I have both had this problem -- she had it when her BerkeleyDB got corrupted, I had it when I moved to mysql. (MySQL users are a little bit more protected because they can do a database dump instead of exporting from MT).

One way to guard against this is to modify your MT settings so that it uses better URLs for your entries. Instead of naming an entry "000123.html", which is based on the entry ID, you can name it "04_07_04.entry_title.html", which "future-proofs" it against database issues.