Deleted all products by accident, how to restore?

Trying to recover from a mini disaster. Our products admin accidentally deleted the entire product catalog via the web admin. We have ZenCart 1.38 on Redhat with Apache. Our hosting provider Rackspace responded quickly and provided me with a recent backup of the html files and mysql database files prior to the incident. Now I'm not sure what to do next as far as copying over the files and the database to restore the site to an earlier date. I have knowledge of basic unix admin, but it takes me hours to look up commands related to restoring databases etc. I am looking for a "how to restore a product catalog in a nutshell" guide, if any exists.

p.s. The store admin explained that she was just moving product categories around, moving one of them inside another, and then a ZenCart dialog appeared: something like "are you sure you want to delete what is attached to the category?" and after that the entire site was wiped out - all the categories/products are now missing. How could that happen? Is this a bug in ZenCart or just confusing wording in the dialogs?

The files you just simply upload via FTP such as filezilla or whatever your preference is. To restore the DB this is generally done through your host phpmyadmin.

Before making any major changes in the future start by doing a full backup of both DB and files. You may be able to restore your DB via Zen cart but search for that.

Final thought, that would only be a bug if it didn't delete.

@fpbear: This sounds like somebody just got in a little bit of a hurry, didn't read carefully enough before confirming the delete.
But, since you've got a backup, all is well.

** TO RESTORE THE DATABASE**

• open phpMyAdmin
• select the database you wish to restore into, from the dropdown menu
• click on the Import tab (in older phpMyAdmin versions, you might have to click the SQL tab instead, to get the Browse button mentioned next: )
• click on the Browse button, and select the file you downloaded when making the backup
• click Go

You'll find this article, and a WHOLE bunch more in the Tutorials/FAQ section of this site. The link can be found at the top of ANY page.

Hope this helps.

just wondering is there any other way to back up your database rather then using a ftp program?

cause i have about 5000 items on my web page
http://mauricedoodysales.ie/
and i need to back them up?

Thanks

No, you can't backup a database with an FTP program.

Read Get Em Fast's instructions in post #3.