Still…Restoring After a Major Blunder

I wrote this unfortunate post last evening on my personal lifestream. I am still working to get one full site restored, dozens of images updated and multiple database alterations re-done. One thing I forgot to mention is that I was using an unfamiliar tool to navigate site files. In addition, I had been working most of the day with no breaks and was just eager to wrap things up. These ingredients make up a recipe for disaster. Another lesson learned, I suppose.

Let me start by saying: always backup your website files and databases. Always. If I had not taken my own advice, you would not be reading this now.

This evening I was attempting to delete a test installation of Textpattern from my server when I somehow got overzealous, lazy or both and apparently deleted my entire public_html directory. That means all of my site files on four websites (including this one) were completely and totally deleted.

I typically run a full backup once or twice every month and had one on my calendar for this coming Monday. I wound up using my latest copy from November 11th. So…it could have been worse.

Suffice it to say I am going to be working overtime to restore data added over the last 39 days to all four sites. That being said, I am thankful for the backups and very happy I do not have to start from scratch. These sites represent (literally) years of diligent labor.

Let this be a lesson to us all – backup, backup, backup!

If you observe some irregularities on this site or one of our others, I hope you will forgive the inconvenience. I will likely be working on getting things “back to normal” for a couple of weeks. If there is a major problem, please let me know.