Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : My host screwed me.

[Zafar Ahmed]

Hi ,

Host : www.vidahost.com

I have been hosted by vidahost for almost a year now and so far their service has been brilliant and i never found the owner helpless , he is always there when I needed him. My site was a big one and it was about a show that comes on TV and i had about 4k members . The site worths $1k almost.

I'm not very good at maintaning sites so I hired someone else to work on it and I told my host to keep the backup of the site all the time and his replies were something like this

'No worries , we have the backup'
'We backup every new week'

I always used to remind him to keep the backup becouse I don't have it since I don't maintain the site and the person I hire only designs the site. So , I wasn't really caring abt having the backup coze my host promised me that he keeps the backup.

However , yesterday ...my site went down and my host said that their server crashed down and all the backup have lost and i lost my whole website becouse of his one mistake. Since then , im screwed and he didn't really help me..

I somehow have this feeling that this was all planed since my site was taking too much bandwidth ...

I don't really recommend www.vidahost.com to anyone now.

Help me if you can else I'll remain screwed.

regards,
Zafar Ahmed

[sgarbus]

You have over 2,000 posts here, and still don't know that you should keep backups, no matter what your host says? Sure, they said they kept them every week, but unless they are utilizing RAID, rsynced to a different drive, or another backup solution, just having your backups on the same drive doesn't do anything when it crashes.

[Tina J]

This is 100% YOUR fault. Their TOS (http://www.vidahost.com/legal.php) even says:

"Our backups are not intended to replace your backup procedures. If your account holds important data then it is your sole responsibility to ensure its integrity and backup reliability as necessary. We disclaim any warranty, fitness for purporse or service level agreement exceeding our Service Level Agreement as stated earlier in this document."

--Tina

[Neoboffin]

I was just about to say you should by now, regardless of promises or even backup solutions your host say's they have backup your own data at least every week.

They are at blame, but if in their Terms of Service, they say they're not responsible for loosing data (which is most likely the case), you've just lost your web site.

[Sean K]

Sorry, but I don't really have any sympathy. It's your fault for not keeping backups. If you were paying your host an extra fee to maintain backups for you, then that's a different case, but it doesn't seem like that applies right now.

[ldcdc]

I always used to remind him to keep the backup becouse I don't have it since I don't maintain the site and the person I hire only designs the site.

Making a full backup takes only a couple of minutes. It is the simplest, most basic thing that any website owner should know and do regularly. I'm sorry you had to learn it the hard way, but I can't agree with you trying to make it look like your host is fully responsible for the situation you're in.

I somehow have this feeling that this was all planed since my site was taking too much bandwidth ...

That's quite a serious allegation. We humans think many things, but should try to state only the ones we can back up with facts.

[AHFBWEB]

Saying "I screwed myself" just does not sound as good as "My host screwed me".

[webuyhosts]

Yep ,
When you have a site making money and growing , is like anything in life, insurance insurance insurance, you have backups , your host has backups, you are guranteed no matter how bad things get you are 100% ready to reload and still make money

[h4wk]

i feel for you. check out bqbackup.com 5gb for $5 dirt dirt cheap. pm me if you need help.

[2Macs Jim]

I have to agree with the rest. Backups are simple to do, next time protect yourself. In the mean time, I hope your web designer can help you with at least your site files.

[Techark]

Lesson to learn.

If the data is important to you never depend on someone else to keep it backed up for you.

[rbrowme]

I learned this lesson, the 5 minutes a day it takes to back up is much better than the hours spent later

[Global2]

Originally Posted by Zafar Ahmed

Hi ,

Host : www.vidahost.com

I have been hosted by vidahost for almost a year now and so far their service has been brilliant and i never found the owner helpless , he is always there when I needed him. My site was a big one and it was about a show that comes on TV and i had about 4k members . The site worths $1k almost.

I'm not very good at maintaning sites so I hired someone else to work on it and I told my host to keep the backup of the site all the time and his replies were something like this

'No worries , we have the backup'
'We backup every new week'

I always used to remind him to keep the backup becouse I don't have it since I don't maintain the site and the person I hire only designs the site. So , I wasn't really caring abt having the backup coze my host promised me that he keeps the backup.

However , yesterday ...my site went down and my host said that their server crashed down and all the backup have lost and i lost my whole website becouse of his one mistake. Since then , im screwed and he didn't really help me..

I somehow have this feeling that this was all planed since my site was taking too much bandwidth ...

I don't really recommend www.vidahost.com to anyone now.

Help me if you can else I'll remain screwed.

regards,
Zafar Ahmed

I cannot tell you how often I hear this story every week!
It sickens my stomach to hear it each and every time.

We constantly remind customers despite the fact our backup drives are seperate systems and every possible precaution is taken to safeguard data of our customers sites to download their backup data weekly and in some cases daily.

Judging from what you said in your post vida may be at fault at some level because if the databackup was on a seperate drive it should have been safe if the primary drive holding your data failed.
But even still their TOS does relieve them of responsibility it is your job as a site owner to maintain backups

[Dave Zan]

It's all about expectations. Unfortunately the OP appeared to have an unrealistic
one because of that simple reply to his/her query.

In any case, Zafar, I hope you've learned your lesson. No host is going to promise
100% hakuna matata backups no matter what.

I guess whoever gave that reply can be faulted for not telling you specifically to
make backups nonetheless. But that's not going to help your situation now except
to salvage whatever is possibly left.

It's up to you whether to hold the host accountable or not.

[Global2]

I feel bad for him I really do - thats just an awful thing to have happen~ and not knowing the experience level of the host involved its hard to guess what they did or did not try in attempts to recover your data.

Zafar Ahmed did you contact the host and ask them to attempt to mount the old drive into another unit as for example /old and attempt to recover data from it ? Was the drive totally dead and unreadable ? This is quite rare however it does happen - on occasion, but typically speaking when we have experienced drive failures an old failing drive can generally be remounted fsckd and most data is at least readable ....
I dont know the setup of that host our virtual units are equipped with triple drive setups main drive controls the operating system second drive the /home directory {website data} and third drive backup data which is generated daily/weekly.
Im thinking they probably didnt have a similar type setup so most likely your website data is on a drive that contained the operating system on it , that being said its probably just unbootable - but not a 100% loss it should be able to remount as a non os drive for data mining ~ try to be nice - push them with this request you might be able to recover that data !!