Genesis/Serenity Theme Gone

In preparing to launch my site with its own domain (i.e. without “wordpress” at the end of the url), I was instructed to go into my GoDaddy hosting account and transfer all the wordpress files into the html folder.

However, after doing that my site did not publish. When I go to my wp dashboard all I see are my pages (without the images I uploaded) and my posts. The dashboard is telling me I have no theme installed. All my widgets, plugins, and images in my media library are gone.

GoDaddy is now telling me I was supposed to backup my database, download it, and then upload it to my hosting account, THEN transfer the wp files to the html folder.

At this point I am not sure what to do reinstate the site. Since wp is telling me I have no theme, do I reinstall the theme at the risk of losing my work? Do I backup the database, download it, and then upload the files to my hosting account.

I would truly appreciate some guidance.

Thank you.