Web Host Closing - No Files

cianclarke

Have had a bit of an issue - one of the two web hosts I've been using has closed. He claimed he sent me an email to inform me of such, but I never recieved it.
When he noticed that I still hadn't contacted the host that was taking over his business, he sent me a personal email informing me I should contact the new host.
I did so immedietly - it's now since transpired that the host was giving a period of five days to contact him, and has since formatted the server. This leaves me with Two sites which have file backups, thankfully.
This also leaves me with two sites which have SQl backups which aren't recent enought to restore to.
Worst of all, this leaves me with a site whose files and SQL haven't been backed up at all yet, it's a work almost finished.

This leaves me in the nasty position of having to more than likely redesign one of the sites, if not more. archive.org doesn't have the site stored - is there anywhere else worth looking?

Anybody have any advice as to where I should be headed with this problem?

Seth Brundle

From what I gather the missing data is just in your DB - is thhis correct?
Would there be much data between your last DB backup and now?
Search Google for the page and then click on the cached version - you should be able to get some bits from there.

Contact your credit card company and do a chargeback - you may as well salvage something from this!

cianclarke

Missing both data and files - the backups I have would be almost a month old, so a fair bit done since then...
Great idea about the google search - I won't get the PHP back, but I'll get the parsed HTML, which might be of some use. Unfortunetly, they don't seem to have a current cache of what i'm after (it just hangs...).
To be honest the money isn't worth chasing up, the guy did look after me well in terms of money - only paid him about €50...

Seth Brundle

Can I ask (because of a discussion in another thread) - was the host based in ireland or abroad?
I had a host (blazernetwork - a quick google will reveal more) disappear last year which had previously been recommended to me. Thankfully I had been making frequent MSSQL backups (drawing down to a local MSSQL DB). I backed up about 300MB every few days. I also had about 250MB worth of files which I had backups of. I was one of the lucky ones!

cianclarke

The host was based in Ireland, small company - he stopped making backups about a week ago he said.
The person I hold responsible is the new host however, for formatting this guy's old box...

Seth Brundle

Sounds very strange!
Are the old backups available?

cianclarke

He stopped taking backups a month ago, apparently people were abusing this...

He's offered to re-set up the joomla installs with the components I had, but I can have this done in the best part of ten minutes, what I really need is the data. Google has some of the copy, but none of the proper formatting and of course none of the PHP that i've edited.
Still, this could have ended much worse - I was considering moving some of my far more complex sites (with active forums, galleries) to this new host, and i just didn't get around to it.

Edit: What's the legal position on this - if the host which is storing my data provides no backups, never notified me of their closure, transferred the sites to a new host who then formatted the machine. Am I entitled to demand a design fee, since I'll be effectively starting from scratch?

Seth Brundle

Check the T&Cs that you signed up to - Id be surprised if they are liable for you not having backups!

axer

cianclarke wrote:

He stopped taking backups a month ago, apparently people were abusing this...

He's offered to re-set up the joomla installs with the components I had, but I can have this done in the best part of ten minutes, what I really need is the data. Google has some of the copy, but none of the proper formatting and of course none of the PHP that i've edited.
Still, this could have ended much worse - I was considering moving some of my far more complex sites (with active forums, galleries) to this new host, and i just didn't get around to it.

Edit: What's the legal position on this - if the host which is storing my data provides no backups, never notified me of their closure, transferred the sites to a new host who then formatted the machine. Am I entitled to demand a design fee, since I'll be effectively starting from scratch?

I'm sure he would have in his terms and conditions that the company takes no responsibility for data lost and that it is up to the customer to make the backups. How come you didnt just go with a big irish host like hosting365 or blacknight?

steve-hosting36

All of the hosts will have clauses minimising any exposure in such a situation. Users are reponsible for backups, even though any reputable provider will also be doing regular backups for their own DR purposes.

GoneShootin

Dish the dirt! What's the name of the hosting company

cianclarke

The Irish company's name is irrelevent - they're gone.
The guy who decided it'd be a great idea to format a server without backing up the data left on it is jewlzk.com.

CoNfOuNd

Bad situation to be in.

Best to use a webhost based in Ireland instead of an Irish company with servers in the US.

mneylon

CoNfOuNd wrote:

Bad situation to be in.

Best to use a webhost based in Ireland instead of an Irish company with servers in the US.

How's that going to help matters if they reformat a hard drive?

CoNfOuNd

Well if there was ever a problem with any account I'd give them a phone call especially if it was pending deletion. I'd hope any Irish host would be more responsible. Looks to me like this was just a rented server and the former owner hardly gave any notice before selling to someone who immediately re-formatted.

Seth Brundle

Why would a new owner immediatley try and close any existing business?
Why did they re-format the drive after giving only five days notice?
Why did they format the drive in the first place? Why not transfer sites onto a different disk and then re-format?

CoNfOuNd

Why would a new owner immediatley try and close any existing business?

Exactly. Very strange thing to do when you buy a new business.

Hence, in my opinion, you'd be better with a responsible host who gives a damn.

An Irish host would be faster ( jewlzk.com is very slow loading for me ).

leeroybrown

I think the moral of the story is that you should be making backups yourself. There are plenty of situations where having your own up to date remote backup can save your time and money.

jmcc

Looks like an n-th level reseller to me.

The stats at 01/May/2007 for jewlzk.com are:

JK-DNSZONE.COM
bionic:165
netresult: 9
.ie 0
.com: 121
.net: 25
.org: 12
.info: 7
.biz: 0
.eu 2

(BIONIC= biz/info/org/net/ie/com total. The netresult is the net change for this month.)

Regards...jmcc