There’s a column in the system_settings table named modx_charset, on my dev system(s) this is set to ’UTF-8’, have a look at your setting for this field in the DB, I suspect yours is now UTF_7 or something, you could update this back to ’UTF-8’ and see if that fixes your prob. It may be more complicated than this, its not something I’ve done before but its worth looking at before you try a re-install. As ever please make sure your database is backed up in case of any disaster here.
Use MODx, or the cat gets it!