Hi Fred, > I told him that I am 99.9% certain that there is no way to retrieve > that lost data, but I thought I would check... > There are dozens of ways to backup a database [1] and if they have not adapted one of them before production, it's their problem. If the data is so "critical" and the system is a live one then your client should have already scheduled daily and weekly incremental / full backups for his database; (weekly full backups and daily incremental backup in most common cases) -- unless they are a) unexperienced b) careless c) stupid In either case they deserve what has happened and I believe it will be a good lesson for them. Some things cannot be learned unless you experience them alive ;) [1] "10 Ways to automatically and manually backup mysql database" http://www.noupe.com/php/10-ways-to-automatically-manually-backup-mysql-database.html HTH, -- Volkan Ozcelik +> Front End Architect, MessengerFX : http://www.messengerfx.com/ +> I tweet: http://twitter.com/linkibol +> linkibol.com - in seek for quality links : http://www.linkibol.com/ +> my blog (in Turkish) : http://www.fikribol.com/donkisot/ +> Sardalya JavaScript Library : http://www.sarmal.com/sardalya/