Nothing
Written November 16th, 2005 by Paul in General
I’m in shock. I awoke late last night, couldn’t get back to sleep so I decided to check my email and maybe do a few blog posts… nothing.
About 30 of my sites that I host on a separate account were down. Crap… oh well, it happens.
So I tried to log into the control panel and my password and username didn’t work!
Now, if the sites are down, usually I can either still log in, or simply can’t reach the cPanel.
This time, nothing, nothing, nothing…
Called the hosting company, emailed them an urgent message, submitted a support ticket - 12 hours ago now and nothing.
The only conclusion I can come to right now, is that the hosting account has been deleted - sites, databases, 10’s of 1000’s of pages of content - gone. Nothing.
Last week I had a hard drive failureon my computer. Everything was fine though. I had copies of software on CDs, week old email backups.
Problem is, I hadn’t backed up the sites on CD’s. The pages, images and databases were backed up on the old, dead hard drive - and since the crash a few days ago I hadn’t gotten around to backing up the sites on the new drive. Nothing.
Gadgetizer is still online because it, and about 4 or 5 sites including this one are on a dedicated server.
I’m a stupid, stupid man.
I should have had triple backups of important data like sites and databases.
1. Daily backups on the server in case the live database gets corrupted.
2. A twice weekly backup of the complete sites and databases on my computer hard drive.
3. Mirrors of #2 on portable media like CDs or memory sticks
But how could I have ??? Ahh, nevermind.
Give me some time to poke my head out of this surrealistic funk and figure out what the hell to do next.
November 17th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
I know how you feel. After losing a hard drive or two I have become paranoid about dataloss at home. As for my site, it gets backed up about once a month and I know that I’m just inviting trouble there. I think I’ll start doing DB backups every night.
So far my hosting service has been able to resolve issues quickly (SQL max_questions errors and bad /var/tmp/ directories so far) and will answer questions unlike my last one.
I wish you the best of luck during your rebuild.
November 18th, 2005 at 5:29 am
Thanks a million John.
If one or the other had happened I would have been prepared. If the hosting acct had been shut down and I had the backups I could have been back in about 24 hours.
If my hard drive had failed only, I would have still had the sites and hosting.
But both happening within a few days of each other caught me with my pants down.
I’m also now thinking of getting an external hard drive and setting things up so it does automatic daily backups. That way theres 4 copies of everything 1. the site itself, 2. on my computer, 3. on CDs and 4. an external HD.
I may even get a fireproof safe just to be sure and put the CDs in there.
It may seem like a hassle, but I’ve learned an expensive/valuable lesson from all this - you can never be too prepared.
November 18th, 2005 at 10:34 am
You’re not a stupid man, Paul. We ALL do this. Pick the wrong host (and I’ve written extensively about choices of hosts as my first experience online was with the WRONG host many years ago), and we all “skip” backups from time to time.
In the big scheme of things, when you’re busy with other things, the backups get put on the “back burner” (excuse the pun, as I’m sure you’re in no mood for humor). It’s just the way it is.
I’m glad you’re seeing it as an omen. I consider all losses as an omen and EDUCATION myself and just take the business in another direction when one occurs.
Good luck and I’ll be cheering for you!
Katheryn
November 19th, 2005 at 2:19 pm
All the failures teach us a lesson. Only golden rule being is that mistakes can not be repeated. Good Luck with your next move.
Ramesh.
November 19th, 2005 at 6:19 pm
That’s terrible. Sorry to hear it.
November 19th, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Paul, look on the bright side. Maybe you can start a ‘data backup’ website that teaches others to be more cautious.
I heard that the topic pays pretty well too
You’ve been added to my Bloglines!
November 20th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
Thats a real shocker Paul.
Check for as many cache pages you can get via search engines. Try as many SE’s as you can. Also try wayback machine, it might also be a help.
There might be a bit trouble converting html cached pages into database, but trust me a smart programmer can really help you, since most of your pages will be of same format, and just need few small logics here and there to get things back running.
I am very sure you will be able to recover a good deal with this process. If you need any of my help, please let me know. I will be glad to help.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:20 am
Paul,
It happens, albeit far too often more than it’s mentioned.
I am sick at the thought of the many hours of work (and data) lost. I know the trepidation you felt when you found out your sites no longer existed — and even now, during the aftermath.
How do I know? I’ve been there myself.
Like you, one day I came online to find my popular “article directory,” holding over 6,500 article pages — GONE in an instant.
I hosted Marketing-Seek.com through a reseller company.
While I was careful to make payment for my hosting dues on time — the reseller wasn’t as careful to pay hers. The result? My site was locked down by the hosting company; and since the reseller still owed on her bill, the hosting company would not release my data to me until she settled her outstanding debt.
I called the reseller, found out what she owed and went back to the hosting company. (YES, my data was THAT important; I was willing to “foot her bill” to get access to my website information).
The hosting company would NOT bargain with me in this respect and I was sick with horror over how I lost an entire 5 years of work, within an instant, through lack of care by someone else.
Plus, I spent weeks going back and forth from reseller to hosting company - to no avail.
Lesson learned? Yes, indeed. But one I’m not willing to experience a second time.
My heart goes out to you. I hope you fair better than I did.
Good luck with your rebuild.
November 21st, 2005 at 1:33 pm
I am speechless…I really am sorry this happened to you. If there’s anything I can do, you know you’re welcome to call on me
November 21st, 2005 at 5:31 pm
Paul,
Try looking at http://www.archive.org and use their waybackmachine.
And yes, it is true that we choose the wrong hosting provider at times. I’ve been through a lot of them I guess over the years.
But I believe, you can overcome that.
Minic
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:45 am
[...] Paul Short suffered massive data loss when his host skipped town and I realized that it could easily have been me. No one is immune to losing their online empire, not even if you’re using a dedicated server. [...]
November 23rd, 2005 at 8:38 am
Sheez… fuck’in hell, Paul!
I’m great believer in “fate”… even when at times it seems to be devastating. Something good will result from this, I know!
Andre