Noob question...

[Craggy]

Don't know where else to turn for advice.

We moved our domain to another host and, because our experience with CMS is almost non existent, we forgot to download the database from our old provider. We did download the contents of our FTP. Does that mean we lost the complete website (layout etc) or just the user data, the content we manage ourselves? Our new provider apparently doesn't really know either (odd), why i'm asking here. We're a bit lost atm.

Hope someone will take the time to answer this, thanks in advance.

[JohnnyB]

The database will hold all of the templates which will include the layout for the pages. It may also hold all of your CSS stylesheets depending upon the way your CMSMS was set up.

The database also holds all of the page content and any content added to modules like News, for example. Also, any custom User Defined Tags.

The file system (FTP) will hold all images, documents, videos, and the CMS's system files.

Depending upon the situation with your former host, they should still have a backup copy available. It may be the mysql data and from there you could back it up onto another server to create a .sql export that can be imported into your new database.

[velden]

I would expect you to have noticed that it doens't work without a database pretty soon? So then I would expect the 'old' database being online with your former provider?

Ask your former provider how to connect to the database (e.g. via phpmyadmin) and export that old database asap.

[paulbaker]

Or, if your old host is unresponsive, plan B would be hoping that the Wayback Machine has stored a copy of your website in the past - if so, you'll be able to download it:
http://archive.org/web/

You should then be able to recreate.

[Rolf]

If the website used a module like MySQLdump, it is possible a copy of the database is between your files, probably in folder /admin/backup/

[Craggy]

Thanks a lot for the replies.

So if we lost the database we don't have a website anymore, and that's bad.
Unfortunately our former host is quite unresponsive, there's a reason we left that host. I even doubt he still has a backup. And if there is, he probably will not admit he still has it. Don't think i can force him to give me a copy of the backup.

I've checked the archive.org link but it doesn't have archived anything we can use. And there's no backup in the folder /admin/backup/ either.
So i guess we're screwed

Again, thanks for the support. (sob)

[velden]

So if we lost the database we don't have a website anymore, and that's bad.
Unfortunately our former host is quite unresponsive, there's a reason we left that host. I even doubt he still has a backup. And if there is, he probably will not admit he still has it. Don't think i can force him to give me a copy of the backup.

What I mentioned earlier: moving a domain to another host does not mean the old environment is not up anymore. Of course I don't know what kind of contract you had/have with your old hosting provider. Or what agreements you've made.

But if you still pay, or contract did not end yet, there would technically be a good chance database is still up. Depending on the importance of this website it could be worth the effort to find that out.

Else, it is a (expensive) lesson and you probably will never forget to make backups anymore. I think you should do it anyway on a regular basis. Or your hosting provider should make backups which you can restore/ask them to restore.