my hosting provider have just lost my data

[donut]

greeting to all members,

i would like some opinions and suggestions on my topic. as a client/consumer, what are the right we have to claim for this. actually my hosting provider have got their server hard drive crashed and all my important emails gone with it. what can i do? this is a local company and they seem dont really care about it. i just wanna know from all members experience, when your website have a downtime, do your hosting provider inform you about it or just keep quiet and only inform when got an email from you asking what's going on.
I'm really frustrated..... I only want all my emails back.

[sampride]

There is very little probability that you can get back your data since their harddisk is corrupted + if they did not do any remote backup, you can't actually get back any of your data.

[starsearcher]

Hello donut,

As a reliable hosting provider, it should have informed its clients once there is downtime. Probably by posting the news up on their website. As for your problem, I'm sorry to hear that. Have you tried contacting them continuously to ask? Like what Sampride says, I suppose you have to prepare for the worst outcome.

[mizan]

As customer, u may backup your email by using Mic outlook or Mozilla thunderbird to download all your email.

[phantomic]

if you're planning to take legal action against the company, do read their tos first.

[gethosted]

maybe they lost all the customers contact within the hard drive. but as provider myself, you need to update your clients for such disaster.

for your email, i dont think you will get back. so change a provider and ask for backup procedure first thing.

[sauerkraut]

Hi donut,

Sorry to hear that you've lost your all your valueble emails. You've proven yourself to be a very considerate customer as you've refrained from naming your hosting provider inspite of all your misgivings.

It may serve as a consolation to you to know that i've the undergone similar problems with a local hosting recently. I've lost my entire website and after 10 days downtime they finally recreate a new account and send me the password.

You may want to read my rants here:
http://webhostingtalk.com.my/viewtopic.php?t=813

[charlesgan]

Originally Posted by sampride

There is very little probability that you can get back your data since their harddisk is corrupted + if they did not do any remote backup, you can't actually get back any of your data.

ya... once lost... its really lost.
even they did periodic backup, it will be weeks back.
find a hosting that give free backup.

[Andylkl]

I'm using the same host as Donut here, the MySQL data was completely wiped out (filename mangled into numbers but data is still there actually, but I still won't get it back) and if it wasn't for the backup that I did on a hunch a few days before the hard disk crash, two years worth of member accounts and forum posts would've gone down the drain! As for website restoration, the best they could did was to restore back and leave me with files which were dated 4 months ago!

I think I'm gonna look for a new host now, before my contract with this current one ends at around July this year. Any suggestions?

[donut]

..thanks guys for your reply, really appreciate it.

looks like i'm not the only one thats been victimise by this hosting provider. all this while i've been very tolerance and patient with all the the problems and downtime occurred. but when they lost all my important emails, that is totally unforgivable. i believe different clients have different kind of need, for me i need my emails to always be accessible on the net not on my hard drive.
furthermore, dont a hosting provider should be reliable, save and secure....

i was never been contacted by them first to inform me of any problems happened/will happened with my account. they only reply when i send them an enquiry/complaint. and i never received any apologize from them from all the trouble i'm being through. the best words they can come up with is 'I believe this is the best I could do for you'. ...and to only apologize when i need to mention it first, is meaningless.

sorry for my long whining...

[vincevincevince]

Unless they promised regular backups then you have no legal case to bring. Some webhosts keep no backups and judge it the responsibility of the user to keep backups - they are providing you connectivity and hosting services, not data storage. Most webhosts keep backups on a weekly or similar basis but do not announce this as once they promise backups if something goes wrong then they are liable if the backup didn't work that week. Very few webhosts provide daily backups without an additional fee, these are more expensive webhosts. Most do however offer backup services based upon the volume of data to be backed up. The fee is normally per Gb or part of Gb at between US$15 and $50/month.

If you pick hosting which is very cheap then you cannot expect much.