On New Year’s eve I mistakenly uninstalled WordPress from this blog thinking I was working on WHIT.tv, the What’s Happening In… Telecasts, another site I own and manage. I wanted to change the WHIT.tv WordPress installation from the single user version to WordPress MU (multi-user) since WHIT.tv will host a series of Internet video shows, with multiple contributors. The first three shows will be What’s Happening in Fashion, What’s Happening in Gardening, and What’s Happening in Rolling Sculpture. I am working on launching the website and the shows.
How did this happen?
I pay GoDaddy to host both sites. They have great service, good prices and reliable hosting. They also have one of the most confused and confusing websites in existence. I went to their website, logged in and clicked on hosting under the My Products section of the home page.
This is what I saw: 
I clicked on the second Manage Account link, the one for WHIT.tv. I was then taken to the Hosting Control Center v2.10.0 Home page, where I clicked on the Your Applications button. I navigated to My Applications – WordPress (installed), and clicked on the link to uninstall the application, thinking I was on WHIT.tv and only WHIT.tv, since the initial link I clicked on was to manage the WHIT.tv account. I was mistaken. I was on both sites and I had clicked on the wrong link, unknowingly uninstalling WordPress from RHFtech.com and not WHIT.tv.
I called GoDaddy and told them I had just deleted several years worth of work and that I needed them to restore the site. They said they could do that for $150. I gave them my credit card number and authorized them to restore my site, figuring I would save several hours worth of headaches in trying to restore my site myself from my backups.
GoDaddy tried and failed. After a week’s worth of attempts I asked for a refund, which is under review at GoDaddy. [Update: GoDaddy refunded my money.]
This morning I searched for how to restore from a backup. Yes, I have many backups as I am pretty good about that. First, I had to install the phpMyAdmin plugin into the WordPress installation. That took a minute. I then followed the instructions at WordPress.org Restoring Your Database from Backup. It took me a couple of minutes to follow those instructions.
And now this blog is back to the way it was before the New Year’s eve massacre. I am thankful that I backup regularly. I am thankful that my Google search found Restoring Your Database from Backup. I wonder, why couldn’t GoDaddy do this?
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