My site is down!!! I feel so helpless...

Hi Warriors,

I use Host Gator and have been pretty happy with them. But then, I've never had a problem, either.

However, both of my sites are currently down! I'm FINALLY moving into the pre-launch phase of my site and OF COURSE it would happen now! I am LIVID!

I also feel very helpless.

I had someone else design/install my sites and they've been working beautifully until now. In fact, I was just on both sites this morning and everything was fine. The only thing that alerted me to the fact that there was a problem tonight was that I went into to finish and send my newsletter through AWeber. Since all of the graphics are just links to graphics on my site, they wouldn't load, which prompted me to look at my sites.

I've asked Host Gator to restore my sites from their backups and have authorized the $15 charge to do so.

I have one main domain. However, the account is divided into two separate sites/sub-domains. It's ALL down.

I've spoken with their support by phone and the gentleman informed me that one of the issues is that the wp-config file appears to be missing. (The gentleman was very kind and courteous. Thank goodness for phone support! It's for PRECISELY times like these that I chose a hosting company with 24/7 phone support. I've dealt with other companies who only had e-mail support. But that's NOT acceptable in an emergency situation like this one.)

I was on my sites this morning and everything was just fine. (I was logged into the admin panel through Wordpress (NOT my cPanel) this morning, but nothing else.) I haven't been messing with the files on my sites at all, nor have I authorized anyone else to do so. These sites have been up for a year with no problems whatsoever.

Hopefully my sites will be back up and running shortly. But I'm EXTREMELY concerned. I can work around a lot of things, but if my sites are down, I am OUT OF BUSINESS. And I'm just launching my companies! (Murphy's law, don'tcha know!)

But how do I find out what happened???? Has someone hacked my account? How can I prevent this from happening again???

I've outsourced my site design/installation/techie issues to others. It's not my forte. But in times like these, it leaves me feeling helpless.

Maybe taking a good, thorough WordPress class (basic design and configuration) is a good idea for times like these.

Any suggestions? Also, does anyone have any experience with Host Gator during times like these? I'm crossing my fingers that my sites are restored with no trouble.

Fortunately, I had my site backed up, and Host Gator also does their own backups. So I'm covered (I think). Because I paid someone else to do my backups, I'm not sure how thorough it was. (HostGator's backup is more recent, so we're using their backup.)

It's my understanding that with Wordpress, you have to backup the theme AND the database, that they're two separate things. For future reference, how do *I* back up my sites and feel secure the ENTIRE site is backed up completely?

I'm VERY upset right now and won't feel any better until my sites are completely back up and online again (12-24 hours).

Michelle