I have put together this video (actually as part of a Competition to win some SingleHop goodies) giving an overview and a brief demonstration of the emergency recovery environment.

Also a little bit of additional information about each of the bailout server recovery modes:

The Linux Environment includes:

• Full suite of base utilities – including the most common standard linux utilities.
• FSCK – To check your hard drive and partition status remotely.
• CHRoot – So that you can change root into your Os filesystem.
• Grub – In order to assist in troubleshooting any grub or kernel related mis-configurations.
• Backup – To allow you to backup data from a server that is not booting correctly.

The Windows Environment includes:

• RegistryLoaderPE – To assist in easy modifications of the Windows Registry
• NTPWEdit Password Edit – To enable you to edit passwords in the case where you have misplaced the password for your Windows Server.
• Recuva File Recovery – Will enable the recovery of files that have been deleted from the server or flushed from the recycling bin.
• Mitec Regisry Recovery – Mitec Registry Recovery allows you to read files containing Windows 9x, NT, 2k, XP, 2k3 registry hives.
• TestDisk Data Recovery – To enable the recovery of lost partitions, and assist in fixing partition tables.
• System Information Viewer – To provide an easy overview of various system information of your server.



I have now had two separate servers provisioned with SingleHop and have only come across one minor hiccup, which was trivial at best (but more on that later).

The SingleHop website is simple to navigate, straightforward and the cute little frog appeals to my sense of humor greatly (but that is the kind of twisted individual I am).

To be honest I can’t remember what the original “Server Customisation” screens looked and/or behaved like exactly, however I have looked at the new screens recently and they are far more advanced than the more primitive screens that were in use when I originally signed up, so it looks like SingleHop is already one up on me there.

The new screens are simple yet effective, especially when it comes to the selection of the management options for a new server which can initially seem complex due to the variety of options, however the new interface displays this in a format which I feel rivals the display and representation of the same information on the rest of the site.

Following the signup and verification processes, several emails are fired off including a link to the live provisioning details of your new server so you can keep tabs on the process. Following that the login details for LEAP (SingleHop’s Server Management and Support Console) are sent as well along with the server login details upon completion of the provisioning process.

The whole process from ordering until the server was released took less than 48 hours (only 3 days before Christmas no less) which was a blessing and it has since been reported on the SingleHop Blog that the provisioning of servers is now down to ~27 mins on average (from ~ 57 minutes) so the overall time may be even faster than the 48 hours turnaround now.

The only hiccup that I encountered during the provisioning process was that on the old ordering system I was not able to select to add an additional hard drive and had to request this manually in the LEAP support system however this was added within mere minutes of the initial provisioning so I was not overly concerned.

The sales staff were helpful, courteous and professional, especially when I was really pressing them about all the individual details of the server prior to ordering. Personally I could not have been happier with the process. Furthermore, with the new ordering system and the added flexibility and ease of server customisation, the process has only become easier.

Over the last 5 years I have gone through my fair share of dedicated server hosting companies. These have included some of the larger names including:

• Ezzi.net
• DedicatedNow
• GeekStorage (VPS)
• Nexpoint.net
• SingleHop

Over the course of this five years I have had my ups (and a lot of downs) with each of these providers, however after having been with SingleHop for some time now I have to say that I have very high praise for their support, professional service and outstanding handling of my account.

I decided to set up this website to write down my experiences with SingleHop and share my experiences to hopefully help others in their decision to move hosts or start dedicated hosting.

I would like to point out that there will be SingleHop advertising throughout this site and links to SingleHop will be affiliate links of mine. For the full details please see my disclosure page.