move to a new hosting company

I am planning to move my site to a new hosting company. However, I have orders with the current host. What file do I need to save and move? Is the database zc_1 the only thing I need to save?

I am not familiar with databse. Is it correct that I just use phpMyAdmin to export the table or database? and how do I put it on the new server?

Is there detailed instructions on how to do this somewhere?

Thanks.

Tutorial on moving here:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=100

Tutorial on backing up your database with phpMyAdmin here:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=103

Plus, FTP a copy of your cart files to a folder on your computer.

i wonder how can the moving instructions miss this: .sql too large to import through phpMyAdmin!

I only had 3 orders and the site was set up for only 4 days. the .sql file is already 21 mb which is not even close to the limit of godaddy's phpMyAdmin.

what do they tell me? you are out of luck! that's what godaddy do. they break up everything into pieces and they want money for each and every piece and set their phpMyAdmin limit to 2mb?!

Anybody has the same problem and solutions?

Before doing your database backup, you may want to "empty" your admin_activity_log and email_archive and upgrade_exceptions tables since they can get large even when setting up and testing the store before taking actual orders.
Then do a database backup ... it should be much smaller. At least, as far as the Zen Cart content is concerned. Maybe you've got non-Zen Cart tables in there, making it huge?

w2e:

i wonder how can the moving instructions miss this: .sql too large to import through phpMyAdmin!

Anybody has the same problem and solutions?

Are you trying to export (backup) your database or are you importing the database on your new server?

If you are having trouble exporting, perhaps you can try the Backup function in Cpanel, and backup your entire site (including databases and files).

If you are having trouble importing then your host will be able to dump the database very easily through ssh, if you ask them to.