Only 5 days – seems much longer since I overwrote the database for this blog with a nice new, clean and shiny, blank one. (see Unintentional Reinvention)
Fortunately, I had saved a backup of the old database just before I did the overwrite. At first it didn’t seem like I was going to be able to import it as the WordPress importer won’t import files bigger than 10 mb – which this one was.
I tried several other options, to no avail.
Then, I simply opened the backup file in Windows Notepad and edited it to create two smaller files, each small enough to upload – and got all of the content back… almost.
All that were missing were most of the images and a large percentage of the comments.
Unfortunately, I not only wrote over the database, but I had deleted all of the WP associated files and directories on the server – including the uploads directory… where all the photos are stored.
So, at this point in the recovery, my blog that is so heavily slanted to pictures had no pictures.
Fortunately, I had saved all non-database files to an external hard drive last summer and, at that point, I had a lot of posts scheduled in advance, so I was able to restore the greatest majority of the images. All images back to beginning of December through also been recovered.
For recent years, I think I’m missing images from 50 or so posts. I’ll be able to find most of those on Pinterest.
The only material that I will be unable to get back, I think, is the comments.
I’ll be looking into a good blog backup plugin, perhaps Backup Creator.
Photo credit:
Title: 09-mar-25
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That's great that you were able to recover most of your files. I use Backup Creator, thankfully I have not had to use the backup files that I save but its there if its ever needed. I chose the ultimate plan. It backs up files automatically and I have a variety of options on how I want my files delivered.
I also use the WP Export tool. I do that several times weekly. The Backup Creator I've set up to do once weekly.
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I was just talking about Backup Creator with Karen. Her blog would be much more difficult to recover without a good backup. She has a lot of loyal readers and posts a lot of pictures to show what she is doing. Right now, most of our online income is coming from her blog.
I've looked at Backup Creator a bit and I'm probably going to go with the Ultimate. Thanks for suggesting it.