Having a localhost install of your site is a great way to work on it without risking your live site’s well-being. If you haven’t done it before, you can get some tips here on this page.
However, you might want to try resurrecting the old site first. Most of your site’s content (posts, pages, etc.) are in the database, which is separate from the WP core files. It probably would have survived the tinkering without harm. The wp-content directory holds stuff like your themes, plugins and uploads.
First you’ll want to make backups of what’s there (even if it may be borked a bit), and you can start reading about that here.
Once that’s handled, you can try re-installing WP (if you were making changes to core files), or just themes (if your experiments were in that area). You didn’t go into much detail about what you did, so this is quite general advice.
If you re-install WP, make sure you DO NOT remove or replace the wp-config.php file (contains your server settings), or the wp-content directory. All other files can be safely deleted and replaced. If your database is intact, you’ll have a fresh start. (And do set up a local development copy for your creative outlet.)
It is easy to move your WP folder to your new WP install on the local host. Follow the following 2 steps.
1. Export your content folder and save it as as .sql files in your local host.
2. Compress your folder and overwrite it on your local host and remember to keep the original structure of the folder.
There is also another method to complete the process, you can follow the steps in this article. [Moderated – Please keep help resources on Codex]
Thanks zhuji91,
I am pretty new to this. ould you be a little more specific on the process.
Here is where I am at:
1. I have brought the wp content files over from hostgator to my desktop using filezilla.
2. I opened wamp and went to SQL import.
3. Imported zipped WP content folder and it said import was successful
Thats about where i sit. Now I need to:
1. overwrite it on local host remembering to maintain original folder structure.
After this is done I assume I should hopefully have access to my old content?
Can you walk me through this section in detail as I am not sure what to do next.
your help is much appreciated
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
Side note: @zhuji91comhk Please keep support in these forums and do not attempt to send users to your site. That’s not how these forums work and your link was deleted.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Forum_Welcome#Helping_Out
@jan Dembowski, thanks for your notice. I just want to list the 2 methods that may be helpful for Mr utterly. Because we have list the 2nd method in detail at our blog. Therefore, I pasted the link.
