Well ths is a long story...

I am currently hosted by someone, who is hosted by ebart, who is hosted by Hostany. A few months ago something happened and the server went down. I waited for my host to give me my backup files but he said that ebart had problems acquiring the backup files from Hostany. They emailed Hostany many times and failed to get much response from them. I emailed them a few times also and did not receive a response.

What should I do? I have a lot of stuff on my old server and I can't get my backup files back. What do you people suggest me doing? Thanks a lot in advance everyone

Wow -

I really hope you manage to sort this out.

Not sure if theres anything additional you can do, other then going directly to the source yourself and see if you can make some headway.

*edit* GO LEAFS GO (sorry canucksfan, couldnt help myself :) )

There is nothing you can do... chalk this up to a learning experience... most host that claim to do backups... DON'T! It is up to us (customers) to do our own backups... it is a business responsibility.

At best you could hire an attorney and fire a letter off to them, if the data is that important... but after "a few months" I doubt if they would have a backup anyway.

Good luck...

You should be contacting "someone" and that someone should be contacting "ebart" and ebart contacting "hostany". :eek:

This is why you should not go with a reseller. Go with a company with their own servers.

If your provider dont backup, or you dont pay them to backup... you always should ;)

Good Luck, I also suggest going to the source for hosting or finding a new provider.

It's not really about that.

For the background: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=191299&highlight=ebart+hostany

Well if the data center shut off your servers, unless you do remote backups, (which a lot don't nowadays) you are pretty stuck with your data.

since that happened 2 months ago, I doubt even hostany would have your data.

Originally posted by hekwu
most host that claim to do backups... DON'T! It is up to us (customers) to do our own backups...


Thats just not true -

Only 2 conclusions I can draw from this statement

1) Youve had bad luck

and/or

2) You choose your hosting provider based solely on price

Having said this, the more backups you have the better - so having your own backup is never a bad idea....

Originally posted by Gargoyle
Thats just not true -

Only 2 conclusions I can draw from this statement

1) Youve had bad luck

and/or

2) You choose your hosting provider based solely on price

Having said this, the more backups you have the better - so having your own backup is never a bad idea....

No, actually I make my statements from being on this board and from people I know who have "failed hard drives" and can't get the backups from hosting companies.

What would choosing a hosting provider based on price proove? Nothing... if a company claims to do backups, then they should. I don't worry about it, I do my own backups.

People who ASSUME

Originally posted by hekwu
No, actually I make my statements from being on this board and from people I know who have "failed hard drives" and can't get the backups from hosting companies.


"failed hard drive" would insinuate a loss of data, not a loss of backup.

A typical backup would be on a different drive (locally) as well as off server via any number of media options (hard drive, DVD, tape, etc...)

Again, you get what you pay for.... (sorry to beat a dead horse over the head with this statement, but it seems to hold true)

Ah, my point :)... if you have a failed hard drive and no backup what do you have? Nothing....

I guess to make blanket statements about "get what pay for" does not apply if a host tells a lie to a customer... that is another argument, I'm off this post....

Fair enough...


But considering your original comment

Originally posted by hekwu
most host that claim to do backups... DON'T!

I still dont think this is true...

If you want to avoid this type of issue, try not going for the lowest price...

Your probability of success will probably increase...

just my thoughts....

Originally posted by sprintserve
It's not really about that.

For the background:

Well if the data center shut off your servers, unless you do remote backups, (which a lot don't nowadays) you are pretty stuck with your data.

since that happened 2 months ago, I doubt even hostany would have your data.

Thanks for that link. Looks like Hostany was willing to give that person his backups. I PMed Hostany so hopefully he will do the same. I don't want to see all the time and effort I put into my website gone just like that...

It's been mentioned before, but I think it worth repeating. Always, always, always keep a current copy of your site on your local machine. Backups can be corrupt, or not even done. If your site is important to you, it's really not worth the risk to upload everything and just expect it to always be there when you need it. Pull down copies of your databases where you can. If you make sure you have your stuff, you make sure you won't get bit in your JBHP if something goes wrong.

The host might do backups, but how resent are they? If you make a change, or have an active database and/or forum, you need to make regular backups on your own as well, no matter what. You can never have too many backup versions.

This is a very sad situation actuallly, but not something that I'm surprised to see, given the level of support (and times of it) provided by HA.

Then again, I think the question should be posed as well:

where were YOUR backups?


The responsibility for backing files up is not one that is the HOST'S responsibility but the end user's. I have seen countless users say "Oh, well so and so should have backed up my files", but sadly, they didn't.

If something is of dire importance to you, do you rely on someone ELSE to do it? no, you get out there and you do it yourself. If your customer database is mission critical, do you let someone ELSE worry about backing it up? Again, no.

You need to do some research on your host to avoid problems like this in the future. A couple months ago, there was a host on here who advertised daily backups but failed to tell his customers that the backups were to the same hard drive. Needless to say the hard drive crash took all the data and there were no backups.

Reliable backups is one of the basic responsibilities of running a hosting company. A host is pretty bad if they advertise backups but don't test their backup system on a regular basis. We shouldn't have to read the excuse of the backups were corrupted after a hard drive crash. Buyer beware.

But, I'll only list a few here...

1-Your host may not truely backup.
2-Your host may not backup with a good frequency.
3-Your host may disappear.
4-Your host may fail to pay and lose access.
5-You may have a falling out with your host.
6-Your host may for some reason hold your files captive.
7-The backup may get hacked or corrupted.
8-You may mess your site up, but not catch it until it is already backed up, so the backup is as bad as the site.

There are many more...it really is simple-Keep all aspects of your business under your control. You---make sure you have a backup that you can access regardless of what happens.

Thanks for your replies everyone.

Apparently Hostany formatted their hardrive so everythings lost. I don't understand why they would go ahead and delete everything, when they know that there are a number of sites in need of those files. One of those hosting companies that I will never recommend to anyone...

Well it has been 2 months. If you needed it that badly, you should have tried to resolve this earlier, and you may still get your data back then.