sorry for the long delay. I guess it is too late but I will answer anyway...
If I understood correctly, you did NOT use ALIGN_ATOMS in the first
simulation, and now you want to restart it with ALIGN_ATOMS.
If you now rerun (with -rerun) your trajectory and recalculate the CVs
with ALIGN_ATOMS you should be able to find the point where the atoms
where not aligned anymore (i.e. when the new COLVAR and the old COLVAR
have the first inconsistent line), and restart from there.
The fact that you don't have the velocities is not a major problem,
since re-initializing them (at the restart) you will not affect the
free energy landscape.
Otherwise, as you said, you just repeat the calculation with
ALIGN_ATOMS. If you need further help in the ALIGN_ATOMS option write
again on the list...
Giovanni