I may have really messed up my forum

[RyanLaw]

I am going to post all the details that I can in hopes that someone can help me out.

We have been using SMF 1.1.? (I think it was the latest version - 1.1.16 perhaps?) and decided to upgrade to 2.0.2

This morning I started the process and did the following:

1. Made a backup of MySQL Database (I use Hostgator) and Home Directory, both within the Hostgator cPanel
2. Made a backup copy of ALL files that I had using my FTP software
3. Downloaded Full Install of SMF 2.0.2 from download.simplemachines.org - this was my first mistake - I didn't read carefully enough to see that I needed to just do the upgrade
4. Uploaded all files of 2.0.2 using FTP software - overwriting all existing files
5. Tried to open forum - had some random error - I didn't write down details, but I knew there was a problem
6. Realizing I downloaded the full install instead of upgrade, I took the backup I made (step 2 above) and re-uploaded that.
7. Opened forum - still had some errors (probably because of competing files from 1.1. and 2.0.2)
8. Downloaded webinstaller.php and correctly used that to download 2.0.2
9. Now 2.0.2 is downloaded but as you can probably guess, all my topics, posts, users, etc are gone.
10. Went back into cPanel and tried restoring the home directory and databases - didn't seem to help - still no users, topics, etc.

I know I did a couple of dumb things in there - had I slowed down and done it correctly from the beginning I'm sure I wouldn't be having these issues.

Is there any simple way to fix this? I am looking for a simple, step-by-step way to fix this major error on my part.

Any advice would be great - thanks in advance for your help.

[Huzzy]

Firstly could you post a link to your forum?

Also what you should do is contact your host and ask them to restore your website for 1-2 nights ago. They will restore it and do the steps to upgrade correctly

P.S : A lot of the famous hosts make back-ups daily for all web-sites incase anything like this happens

[Dzonny]

Hello there and welcome to smf community.

Please take a look at Upgrading SMF docs.
You should download large upgrade pack and follow instructions provided in link before.

If your database is not broken, and i believe it is not, you should just proceed with large upgrade process.
Please note that you should again download full backup of your site and ofc database, just in case.

Regards.

[RyanLaw]

Thanks for the advice - I contacted Hostgator and they were able to restore it, then I used Webinstall.php and was able to upgrade to 2.0.2 without any problems!