Disaster and recovery!

I'm writing this with some relief today, as after 12 nerve-wracking days, I finally managed to restore my regional Guild's web-site that I have been the designer/manager/programmer of since it was started in 2007.   I had originally created it in basic html, and then a year or so later set it up in Joomla! 

And I must say that I've had no formal training in this, just buy the book, read as much on-line as possible, and hope to goodness that nothing too technically complicated arises!

Joomla! is a marvellous open source content managed system for web-sites.   A couple of years ago I tried  unsuccessfully (with some "expert" help) to update the Joomla version, as the community had developed some great features.  As I am soon to hand over my baby to another keen quilter I decided two weeks ago that it was time to try again to have the latest version running it.  That's when the disaster struck!  Seemingly total wipe-out!  But all was safe, just needed to have the hosting Systems Admin (very nervously) remove ALL the files on the server, then I uploaded the files previously saved locally, fiddled a bit with the MySql tables, and was astonished to see that even the new info added just before The Disaster is all happily in place.  I'm sure How I Did a Recovery is not written in any manual or wiki anywhere


I'm hoping that there is another quilter/knowledgeable Joomla user, or someone who knows one, out there who might be prepared to share How To Do a Version Upgrade (without losing all the current data!).

But did manage to sew one Just Takes 2 block, and take a photo of the baby jerseys knitted ages ago but only recently sewn up.

I didn't crop all of it - just left some of the cutting mat, so you can see it is 12.5" square!