How to Reset Your Hosting Space

Sometimes you just want to tear everything down and then build it back up.  Maybe you are tired of your old nopCommerce site and want to try out WordPress.

Maybe you have an older version of an app in your hosting space and you want to upgrade, but first you need to remove the current installation.

Whatever the reason, the support department is often asked, “How do I reset my hosting space?”

Well, there isn’t a tool available in Control Panel to do this, so I have provided the following guide for you to use to clean out your hosting space and return it to “factory default” in two broad steps.

Backing up and removing your database

1. Find your Control Panel’s MS SQL Manager (or MySQL Manager for you Linux types).
2. Use your MS SQL Manager’s Manage link, and then the backup link to take you to the backup prompt.
3. Back it on up!
4. Navigate back to the first screen of your MS SQL Manager, this time use the Delete link.
5. Confirm it, and delete your database.

Backing up your site’s files and then removing them

You might have had to mark a few sub directories as application starting points in the past; I recommend that you unmark them first in order to avoid potential permissions issues.

1. Navigate to the Application Starting Point tool in Control Panel.
2. Use the delete link to unmark these directories as application starting points, we will take the actual backups next as this step does not delete any files itself.
3. Connect to your web server with an FTP client, I recommend FileZilla, I also recommend that you use your alternative FTP address, to avoid any potential issues with DNS.
4. Since I want to take a backup of all my files and include my database backup, I’m going to download everything to my local computer. If you don’t want a backup, or just want to backup certain files, just download the files you want.
5. Sometimes you have to manually enter “App_Data” (the directory I backed up my database too) in the Remote Site section in order to access it.
6. Once you have a copy of everything that you need, select all your remote directories and hit DELETE.

If you cannot delete some of your files and directories at this point, try recycling your application pool.  Sometimes web applications do not “let go” of a file or directory properly, and you will not be able to delete a file while it is in use. Recycling your application pool should remove the lock.

If you tried recycling your application pool but still cannot delete a file, open up a ticket with the support department and ask us to manually remove the files from the server.

Make sure to provide us with a copy of your FTP log, just so we know that you tried to delete the files yourself.

And there you have it, we now have a completely clean hosting space.

Your database has been backed up and removed, so we don’t have to worry about old table data conflicting with new.

Also, all of your application starting points have been removed, and you have regained all of your disk space allotment on the web server.