Forum hacked - recovery

[peterp]

It was possible to recover most images, but only up to October 20th. Everything posted from then until now is inside another database, and it is too complicated to move over to this one. I need outside advice on transferring those specific posts from dB to dB.
I may be insert the missing posts it is not too time consuming and risky for the current dB.

To allow normal usage we will be using the forum without the data from the 20th to now (Nov. 3). I ask for your understanding in the matter.

Forum address:  discussion.chinese-antique-porcelain.com

Peter

[hoogenbosch67]

Hello Peter, please let me know, what database system you use. I expect its mysql. Forum is written php??. If so who has setup the database or is this done automaticly by installing the forum. For mysql you have easy tools to copy drop etc colums from one to another database. Greetings Jan

[peterp]

Hi Jan,
Yes you are right, I normally use the automatic installations provided by the host. The original instance was transferred from another host earlier this year, but I installed a temporary one and later one more for testing, using some backups of the Mysql dBs. It was originally working well after re-installation on about the 24th last month, but a few days ago I started getting notices that the server could not connect with the dB; then a forum user pointed out that images were missing. I found that on the 26th some images were shown, some had broken links. Forum maintenance just removed the links earlier to that.
The original and first temporary installation still do not show them, but during all this I also noted that the dBs in those were somehow changed.
Tested a number of things, but as dBs are not really my cup of tea, I decided that it is not worth it.  It seems to be too complicated to move the topics in-between manually, and I spent too many days learning about dBs. Fnally decided that it is better for forum users that they can read and ask queries instead of waiting. Yesterday I linked up the only setup working well in this respect, with posts ending on the 20th. So, what you see now is a new installation with the backup dB and original attachment folder moved over to the new one.
I will be starting to make dB backups weekly. I'm not sure if the dB errors are really due to the forum databases themselves, or if there are other underlying problems with the server.