Problems with site restoration

[HarisTopal]

Greetings all
This happens to be my first post. I have trouble restoring a web site of a friend. We paid for the domain name and a web hosting pack and I uploaded the full backup which includes the database as well.
I called the technical support and I asked them to restore the site and they asked me about the database user/password. In the past whenever we had to change provider, the restoration was done by the technical department of the provider without asking me any info.

My question now is, how can I find the database user/pass? I have no configuration.php file, on the contrary I have configuration.php-dist which does not include what I am looking for.
Any help would be appreciated

[sozzled]

Excuse me but I see you've posted your question in the "new to Joomla 1.5" forum category. Is that correct? Are you talking about restoring an old J! 1.5 website?

[HarisTopal]

1) Basically it is General Questions / New to Joomla 1.5. I couldn't find any suitable category for my problem so I chose this one. I though of posting it in 'Installation 1.5' category but my case is not a matter of installing but restoring.

2) Yes I am talking about restoring an old J1.5 website. I have full backup which I have uploaded to the new server but the technical staff ask me for the username / password of the database, which I do not know. I am looking for any possible solution

[sozzled]

I'm sorry to hear that you're trying to restore an old, out-of-date and probably vulnerable-to-attack J! 1.5 website. Leaving that aside, however, you have asked a question about what username and password is used for the database that you will use in conjunction with your J! 1.5 website.

The short answer to your question is that it's something that you, yourself, should know.

When you buy a webhosting plan, the webhost provider should give you a few tips, pointer, FAQs, etc. about how to host a website (and, in this case, a Joomla website). However, in your case, you've stated that you've left all of those technical questions in the capable hands of the "technical department of the provider" that you happen to be involved with. Well, in this case, the "technical department" of your current webhosting provider should know the answer to your question.

My advice—which is totally free and you're free to disregard it, if you choose—is twofold:

1) If this kind of technical support is not included within the hosting plan that you've paid for—and you don't know, yourself, how to restore a website from a backup—then seek a solution from another hosting provider who provides this kind of service; and/or

2) Engage a professional consultant to guide you through the process and to further assist you with migrating your site to the latest, stable version of Joomla (not a version that is more than four years out-of-date and vulnerable to attack).

In either case, if your website is important to your business, it's going to cost you some money.