The explanation

As you see, this site was hosted by MyExHost when I got myself entitled for a sponsorship program under iCalvyn. I believe most of you experience certain difficulties while trying to load this site for quite a number of times.

I do get fed up with my host sometimes for the inaccessibility of my site which happened so frequently (Robin is the one who always noticed that). And with the recent Hard Drive problems, many of the unlucky ones got affected. UncleSeng, Jeremy, GaTo and Clarence are now not DEAD! I know how you guys felt, we all felt like screwing our host.

On a brighter side, Daniel being the lucky one was able to revive his blog in a short while but with all previous posts gone. As much as I valued you, I would like to let you know what had actually happened. Skip this if you do not understand the technical jargons (I don’t understand them as well).

Email 1: IMMEDIATE HARD DRIVE Replacement on Gamma Server
13 June 2008 17:11

Dear MyExHost Solutions Users,

This error occured around few weeks. We tried our best to fix this up though, it looks like the Linux Kernel journal is no more allowing us to run this hard drive. We need to take the server down for a few hours to do the replacement and restore all data. We are expecting this process to be completed in less than 12 hours. Please note, if you have account on a different server, you shouldn’t face this error or you are not affected with this. Please also note, no data are lost, all are backed up and fine as it is.

Thanks for your patience in the matter.

Regards
SeaChen

That email was sent to me on a Friday 13. This morning when I woke up, my host sent another mail to me. Now, this is not a good news.

Email 2: File System Corruption on Gamma Server
14 June 2008 05:21

Dear MyExHost Users,

We are sorry to say that the file system of Gamma Server got fully corrupted because of a Journal crash. Our techs as well as the Datacenter techs tried their best to recover the data though, none of the data from the corrupted hard drives could recover. We are lucky that we had daily backups on our Lan server but the root problem is, we do not backup any of the configuration file or mysql databases offsite. We were backing them on the same server and having RAID to protect the data corruption. The file system corruption as well as the RAID fail have resulted these files to be lost. Right now, we have around 210GB of total files of the users. No Database or Cpanel informations are available in the server right now. We are trying to employ someone to create all the Active Gamma Server accounts and sends the account notification asap. If you need any of the files backup please contact the support immediately.

Sorry for the inconveniences, we know the hard drive failure was out of our hand, though matter related to backup techniques was a big fault. We have learned our lessons and going to configure the whole mysql server on a new node located under our Private LAN. We apologies again for the inconvenience as we can’t really do anything else other than that right now. In the meantime if someone have any full backup, you can restore it anytime by calling support.

Regards
SeaChen

What can I say? I accept this unfortunate incident and I forgive my host. We both learn our lessons, we both should have BACKUPs!

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28 comments ↓

#1 V!W!No Gravatar on 06.14.08 at 5:40 pm

haha……ur lucky but not for Uncle, i visited his, nothing much but a big blank white with few characters linked to nowhere :P

#2 ColourfulWorldNo Gravatar on 06.14.08 at 6:00 pm

Don’t laugh V!W!…

I shall return in full swing!!!

Never ever trust your host, no matter how good they are. Buy your own server and host yourself! LOL…

I backup everything except my blog database…

ZZZ…

#3 RobinNo Gravatar on 06.14.08 at 9:04 pm

Oh gosh, thats just not right. How can they not have a local backup somewhere off-line??
Sigh…..
I am guessing a lot of people are getting frustrated now…

#4 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.14.08 at 9:13 pm

V!W!,
Uncle just got his domain back. Just like me, he lost all the posts as well. Congratulations to Uncle!

#5 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.14.08 at 9:16 pm

Uncle,
Same same la… I forgot to backup my database. Sob Sob. Feel tired after sitting in front of the computer for the whole day figuring how to save my blog.

#6 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.14.08 at 9:17 pm

Robin,
Don’t feel frustrated. I know many people will missed my old posts so do I. I will try my best to write good stuffs. Have faith in me. =)

#7 KennethNo Gravatar on 06.14.08 at 9:25 pm

So sorry to hear that, Dan. Don’t give up, jia you!

#8 suituapuiNo Gravatar on 06.15.08 at 7:02 am

I was wondering whether there was something wrong with my internet access…cos I couldn’t log in a number of blogs…urs, gato’s!!!! Hope like u, he’s back too…Haven’t checked!

#9 Beverly's SecretNo Gravatar on 06.15.08 at 11:34 am

Thanks for visiting, Daniel..
I’m glad that you like Alcatraz :D

#10 PaulNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 12:22 am

no wonder i cant access your blog last few days. everyone may face this incident and it is out of our control (unless we backup all our data). anyway, keep it on bro!

#11 cbenc12No Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 11:40 am

i hope it will serves enough motivation for me to start backup!!!

#12 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 11:55 am

Kenneth,
Don’t be sorry. Which host are you using now? I’m planning to change my host should I am not satisfied with mine in the near future. Anyway I am still giving them a second chance.

#13 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 11:56 am

suituapui,
Yeap. The few names which I mentioned all kena teruk teruk. I still can’t reach GaTo’s blog, maybe he’s not aware of it. Or maybe he felt fedup. Who knows?

#14 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 11:57 am

Beverly’s Secret,
Alcatraz reminds me of Prison Break. Anyway Alcatraz is not as bad as Sona. Haha.

#15 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 11:58 am

Paul,
Now I have to start growing to a tall tree from a mustard seed again, hopefully with all the necessary water and nutrients this tree will stand tall.

#16 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 12:01 pm

cbenc12,
Faster go and backup everything. Save your backups everywhere. =) Thanks for “re-dropping” by, I’ll link you up.

#17 jeremyNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 12:24 pm

hi Daniel

i was so disappointed when i read the mails and saw my website appeared blank. weeks of hard work all gone. but i didn’t blame SeaChen coz i think no one is expecting this to happen. luckily i finished my exam. gonna spend another few hours customizing my template, building the blog roll, modify the css thingy. you’re lucky lar.. u only have 1 blog to manage. i have 2.

#18 jeremyNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 12:26 pm

hi Daniel.

looks like i have no choice but to spend another few hours customizing building and modifying my blogs’ templates, blog roll and css thingy.

kinda set.

but can do nothing.

luckily seachen helped me to upload wordpress to my both domains. save me quite a lot of time

#19 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 12:38 pm

Jeremy,
God willing, everything will be okay. Glad that your holiday is coming soon and that you have finished your exam. Yeap, I only have 1 blog at the moment, I am considering starting another subdomain in the near future. It will be more on faith related issue.

#20 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 12:41 pm

Jeremy,
Sea Chen gave me back my database as well. It saves me a lot of time as I do not have to edit my theme once more. I really like this Grid Focus theme and had poured in a lot of effort previously. Thank God it was in their backup. I got my blogroll back by referring to the feeds I subscribed through Google Read, some of the links from MyBlogLog and Technorati, and some from SiteMeter and Google Analytics. Phew…

#21 jeremyNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 1:58 pm

finally i finished my websites! added you to my link!

#22 iCalvynNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 2:40 pm

sorry to heard that, no wonder I cant access your website last week, and recently only get this news from uncleseng…

Try to use a db backup plugin to avoid this kind of problem occur again.

#23 i know i am a narcissist on 06.16.08 at 6:44 pm

[...] you already know, a few friends and I were gunned down with the recent unfortunate incident which kept us spiralling and struggling to rebuild our own site. Jeremy and UncleSeng have now [...]

#24 Daniel LiewNo Gravatar on 06.16.08 at 9:14 pm

iCalvyn,
It’s alright. Thanks for the gentle reminder, I will always remember to backup once in a while. Hope nobody is “screwing” you for this. Hehe.

#25 ColourfulWorldNo Gravatar on 06.17.08 at 10:19 am

I don’t think anyone will screw iCalvyn ler. He’s a nice guy and this is purely an accident, you can’t predict accidents right? LOL…

#26 iCalvynNo Gravatar on 06.17.08 at 6:16 pm

try to use the wp backup plugin, schedule it to be generate backup twice a week, email the db to ur email… keep it save….can generate every days too…more secure

#27 clarenceNo Gravatar on 06.21.08 at 1:16 am

Hi Daniel ! Looks like everyone is back again. :)

#28 Danielliew.com : Talking about 2008 on 01.01.09 at 5:12 pm

[...] the sad thing first, after two months of hosting my blog on a server something bad happened. All my database was lost! Mad I was at my host at first but then it’s my fault also for forgetting to backup my [...]

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