Database STOLEN

[1yesfan]

Has anyone ran into a issue where your site database has been stolen by a server owner? My last server owner tossed me off his site, www.yesfans.com and 2 weeks later he has not sent me my database. He won't even let my new server folks get it via cpanel.
My site is 5 years old, had close to 800k posts and 6500 members. ALL IN LIMBO now.
Anyone delt with this before. Anyone taken legal action on something like this?

TIm

[encryption]

not tossed but deleted, I used to host with ionhosting and after a years worth of hosting (7000 members, 250,000+ Posts), without sending me an invoice / notice / email / warning, their best way to try and get my attention was deleting my account. I hounded them for 3 weeks trying to get them to install something to recover the database but their responses just shrunk in number without anything conclusive to add.

Had to start from scratch. Nothing I could do and by most accounts, unless you're willing to nosedive into expenses, very little you can do other than hound him.

You can also report him to the BBB

[Scott MacVicar]

I suggest posting at webhostingtalk and trying bad publicity to see if they will change their mind, thats all you can really do.

[1yesfan]

No legal ave to take? It is my property.

[Scott MacVicar]

Sure you could probably argue a legal side of it, but negative publicity tends to work faster and cost less

[BassX]

Why were you kicked off?

It's hard to believe people still don't make/keep backups and store them someplace other than the server.

[1yesfan]

I was stupid, I kept the backups on his server. I have NO access to his server now. He booted me, on a weds, took me 2 days to get him to reply and tell me why I was down. He has been a jackass to me and many others for YEARS and YEARS and it was my turn. He wante dme to buy into a 350 a month server and I refused so in part he dumped me because of that.

[encryption]

he was a jackass to you for YEARS and YEARS and you continued to host with him ? Is he a relative you owe a favor or what ?

[conqsoft]

I do weekly (or more often) backups of my entire site, and database, to my local system and backup to CD/DVD. Everyone should.

[FlyBoy73]

Even though I have never had a problem like this (nightmare) I also always do backups to my local machine and burn them to DVD. Well, used to.. Now they are too large so I went and purchased a few external drives but never ever go without local backups at the very least once a month. I do at least once a week.

[1yesfan]

Till recently I was on DIALUP. Bet your ARSE I will backup to my own system also!

[atcNick]

Man that would piss me off! Send hired goons to "convince" him to give you your data back.

Nick

[Nxs]

ouch,

Guess this is just a reminder to people to keep a copy off site. My forums are backed up every night to a file on my host and an automated process grabs an offline copy to my home server three times a week.

[Visibility]

Good advice, Nxs. It's no doubt too late for the OP, but a letter from an attorney arriving by Fedex or Certified Mail with signature required does a great job of getting the attention of the recipient. Just writing a letter could be less than a couple of hundred bucks depending on the firm. The letter should cite all the things the host will get sued for, all the damages, etc. Suddenly, giving you access to your data becomes the path of least resistance.

Offsite backups are the best bet, though. Data centers can get destroyed by flooding, fire, etc., or the server with your backups stored could melt down.