Critical Service Outage

Earlier today, the server stopped responding to requests. I was unable to reach the host OS remotely. I logged into the web control panel, and the server was in an Offline status. Thinking that it had crashed for some unknown reason, I proceded to power it back on. It did not come back online, and was still not accessible.

I submitted a ticket to the hosting company, and requested that they investigate and bring the server back online. I received a response a short time later stating that there did not appear to be any operating system installed on the server. This means that I do not have access to the map files that made up our server.

The normal schedule of backups has been interupted lately as I waited for Bukkit to be updated. Since Bukkit was just updated recently, I have not had time to move any of the current backups off of the server hard drive and onto my local machine or other storage. All the current data was, at the time of the crash, located on the server hard drive.

I have requested that the hosting company attempt to open the server disk image and recover those backup files. I have not heard back from them since this request. Everyone cross your fingers and say a brief prayer. I will keep you updated.

UPDATE: The hosting company has responded to tell me that the IP address I gave them, (the one you can all see listed on the right side of the screen, and in all of your Minecraft server lists, and in the multiple subdomains that I have created,) is not my server, and that my server is at a different address and has no OS installed.

Needless to say, I am correcting them.

UPDATE 2: A transcript of my conversation with support is below.

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Support:

Hello,

I could see no operating system has been installed in your server(173.254.255.43).

Please go ahead and try installing OS via the control panel that has been provided to you.

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

(You will notice that the IP address is not the one we use)

Me:

This server has been running just fine for several months now; what happened to my OS? I had files on there that I need. Is there any way you can view the disk image and attempt to recover data from it?

Support:

Hello,

Please be informed that the server IP address(109.169.80.172) which has given by you is not in our solusvm database.

And I could see the server with the IP address(173.254.255.43) under your email account.

That server 173.254.255.43 has no OS mounted. So,Please go ahead and try installing OS via the control panel that has been provided to you.

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

Thanks for your understanding.

Me:

I have been running a VPS under the IP address of 109.169.80.172 for several MONTHS now. I have DNS records pointing to it that have worked up until today, I have settings saved in 3 or 4 programs that point to that address, and they have worked up until today. I have users who have used THAT IP address to connect to the server for months now. That IP address WAS my server for the past several months. I have no idea why it is no longer showing it as such, but that IP address was my server, and I want to know what happened to my server and my data, and I want to know immediately.

Support:

Hello,

Sorry, I could not find this server with the IP address 109.169.80.172 in our solusvm database.

Me:

I have enclosed below the text from my original Registration/Welcome email, in which I was given the initial login and server details for my VPS.

~~~ The above described information was enclosed here; it clearly shows the IP address our server was on, and makes NO mention of the IP address that the Support personnel brought up earlier in this conversation ~~~

As you can clearly see, I was given a server on IP address 109.169.80.172. This server was functioning perfectly up until today. Please now explain to me, in EXCRUCIATING detail, how you have managed to LOSE an entire server and ALL of the data that was on it, in a matter of a few hours. If you are not able to do this for me, please connect me to your manager. Also, please keep in mind that you do not need to simplify your explanation for me; I am a Network Operator in a Tier III data center for the largest healthcare company in the United States. I help manage a data center of over 2000 servers and the networks to over a thousand remote facilities across the country; you do not need to worry about comprehension on my end.

I await your rapid response.

Support:

Hello,

I am escalating this to our senior admin to assist you further.

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At this point, I am still waiting for the Senior Administrator to contact me back about this issue.