I have a server out of order. The files were missing. But I have partial access to the hard drive where there were websites. With the setting of ISPConfig, a backup copy was made every day. Actually the question: is it possible to somehow get a backup copy, if not pressed to save?
I may not understand your question correctly, but if you did not "press save" on the backups tab of the website, then it would not have been configured to make any backups for that site. The original files should be under /var/www/{domain.tld/ in the web/ and possibly private/ directories, which may be what you mean is missing, but check there to see if anything is there. One last thought, you didn't happen to have /var/www/ mounted from another disk / partition did you? Perhaps it's as simple as a mount failed (due to filesystem corruption, possibly) and could be recoverable.
Do you have a /usr/local/ispconfig/server/scripts/backup_dir_mount.sh and /usr/local/ispconfig/server/scripts/backup_dir_umount.sh script by chance? By default you will not have one, but if they exist, they will be run before/after a backup, and are intended to mount a devive/remote storage on which to store backups. Ie. if you use those scripts, it is normal for the backups directory to be empty when backups are not being created or restored, but you can run the "mount" script to access the backups again (then run the "umount" when you're done).
If no backups, and the originals are gone, you're about out of luck. Sometimes data recovery tools could help, if the blocks on disk haven't been overwritten (look into the "lazarus" tool). Google cache or archive.org might be able to provide a glimpse of what the sites/pages looked like, and if they were static html you might even be able to save the html to files. But you're pushing up against "all gone" at this point...
