Anyone know what's up with HostForWeb?

My website is down and I cannot even get them on the phone.

Mine seem fine. have you sent them an email?

That's weird, I've had them for a year and not a problem. I can't reach them on the phone and can't get to my website, admin, or cpanel. I'll try emailing them.

Okay, got them on the phone finally, they're working on getting it backup. The lady said the server I am on is down.

Ok. I have a question. Why would a server going down on a large professional server farm cause your site to fail? Another backup unit should have kicked in to take it's place.

 those servers are not running a scaled redundant network sky, you are on one machine, if you are only leasing one machine. in the event that machine takes a dive, if you are not paying them for Managed Dedicated, you have no recourse. it is the site owners responsibility to ensure they have recoverable backups, or the site owner responsibility to employ the datacenter to to make sure they have recoverable backups. but a server going down, specifically if it were from disk failure, if there is no disaster recovery plan in place, your site is basically toastoleum. gone, kaput, asta la vista, holla. 

I'm on a virtual machine (VPS) and there's no reason it can't. If I burn my site, that's one thing but if they do it or they have a failure that drops one out, another should be ready to go in the background. That's why we use them. If they don;t do that, one of the most basic steps in running a datacenter, then I might as well put my site on a machine in my garage.

I am willing to bet if a hard drive failure occurred on your machine right now, or a memory failure, or a cpu failure. Anything they takes down the server your site will go down, and will remain down until they make repairs. Even if they have a spare server sitting on a shelf they would still need to move the data.

Try it. Go over to their datacenter and dump a gallon of water into the server and see how long it takes until your site is back up.

Anyhow, a VPS is a bit different anyway. It's just a virtual space. It can be moved from server to server, but it still takes time.

 i think you should inquire. so you are not deftly disappointed should anything of that nature occur. if you are on a VPS, please go read the TOS on that. and make sure you have disaster recovery, either on your behalf or disk failure. 

 yeah you might want to go read the SLA, then send them a ticket. though they say they will replace the hardware within 12 hours, if you you have drive failure, just need to check on this and make sure is all i am saying. 

there is markedly a statement regarding backups and recovery on Fully Managed Dedicated, but nothing of the sort in writing on the VPS. i also inquired, and the level 1 tech said that backups were strictly handled by level 2 support, when i asked about the backup procedure and disaster recovery. 

was told that VPS's are backed up, when i inquired as to where that was in writing, i was told it does not exist in writing. interesting indeed if you ask me. 

 virtual server is really not that much diffrenence when considering disk failure. because the disk or array is parted out, if that disk goes, all VPS's would go. 

so there is really not that much difference. 

 its not so much a virtual space, its a true space on the machine. the kernel allows allocation of resources through openvz or xen, or virtuozzo. think of it like this......

an apartment building, if the power goes out in the apartment complex, the entire complex is out, until power is restored. so you have a building with many subdivided spaces. though in most cases, there would be quadrants that are fed on such an instance, but on a Virtual private server, the only thing virtual is the privacy. the server is still one standard machine, with a virtualized kernel

Ok, I am not a server specialist but I do know a little.

Example: I pay for a software package for my towing company that is hosted elsewhere. That system or server or datacenter, whatever you want to call it, is setup so if a catastrphic failure occurs, there is a mirrored server that automatically takes over until the first one can be repaired. The only time my software is down is if the internet itself fails or they drop a bomb on the building and blow the whole thing to bits. Even power outages are handled using redundant power backup systems.

 yeah i doubt you have a redundant failover plan with HFW. they will get the machine back online when they can get it back online. but in the even there is a disk failure, kinda similar to your heart stopping, if they can jolt it free from its goo, then they cover you up with a sheet, and consider you dead. drives die every day

 yeah maybe they have sold you something that dont exist. so you are saying that if HFW has 10,000 servers online, there are 10,000 replicated servers sitting stale, collecting dust, waiting for a catastrophe? or any other datacenter. not the way that works that i am aware of. i am familiar with all kinds and types of backups, but redundant failover, is by fare probably one of the most expensive, next to tape backups and archiving. 

Ok, I can see your point when it comes to actual machines. And my example isn't the same as hosting multiple accounts. It's one account with one software package that many are accessing. Would be a simple matter to build a completely mirrored machine to fail over to if the first server goes down.

Another reason to go to a cloud environment.

 well i typed you a really nice and descriptive answer. however, this stupid session timeout issue that boonex has, stole my answer. not going to write it again. 

LOL! You just have to learn how to type faster!

I've learned to copy my posts to my clipboard if i am writing an especially long one here. ALL HAIL THE FISH FORUM GODS!

My website was down since yesterday afternoon.

When I logged in this morning I was shocked to see that a lot of information is missing and the work I did on the website for the last 3-4 months is gone.

I called Host For Web and they said they're working on moving the data from one server to the new one and it will take time. So far my website wasn't restored to its full present time condition and it looks like it was 3-4 months ago.

I sure hope they will restore the site to the exact condition it was 2 days ago.

Here is the latest email I received from them an hour ago.

The newer data for customers who were moved to this new server is currently being synced over to the server. Since it is a large amount of data, it will still take some time. I unfortunately do not have an ETA on when it will be completed. Our admins should be making an announcement on http://forums.hostforweb.com/showthread.php?8323-cloud100.hostforweb.net-Outage when it is done.

Regards,
Alex

My site was not restored still and its been 48 hours now.

Is it possible to sue the Host company?

 most likely you can sue them, however, legal fees would be immense and time-frame would be extremely long. you could be in court on something like this for years. then only to find out there is no resolve. 

 this is exactly the reason i was saying to sky, that the only way to know you have a good backup, is to run your own backup solution. 

 You're probably right and it doesn't worth the hassle.

This is the first time it happens to me in 2 years and will be the LAST!

Thanks DosDawg

Finally my website is fully  restored.

Lesson learned!