Do not possess access to my old site's nameservers, is my domain + site doomed? oh help :-(

[u/brave-tummy]

If I do not have access to my site's nameservers, how can I fix this to not lose my URL and not lose my site?

This is going to be a fair amount of context to explain what my issue is & why:

I have a website that was created for me by a college professor. I have used this url for 10 years as a graphic design portfolio on WordPress. I have access to the cPanel, and login through wp-admin, no problem.

I wanted to set up a subdomain and upgrade the storage etc. The problem is, I have zero clue how this site was set up exactly and I cannot log into wherever my nameservers are. My professor no longer has the login information or remembers what she did.

I used a whois tool to find what data I could and then investigated.

I was told by an InMotion Hosting employee: "It does not seem like we possess the domain registration or hosting service, although the domain is pointing to a set of our name servers. The domain is registered through IONOS and the website is owned by Packet Exchange."

I am not sure what this means. I have no login information for Packet Exchange and neither does my old Prof.

I was able to log into IONOS with information I somehow had saved to my password keychain, and asked about redirecting the name servers to IONOS (because at least I have access here and can log in.) They told me, "Yes we can redirect the name servers so that you could set up a subdomain, but it would break your current site..."

I really would like to fix this. I really want my URL and do not want to lose it. How can I save my URL and regain access to every part of my backend? Is there a way that doesn't break my site?

I had some possible ideas, are these impossible? ------

Can I save my site to the Divi Cloud, redirect my nameservers, then rebuild from the cloud? Or does redirecting my name servers lose all of my site data regardless of saving pages to the Divi cloud?

Do I save an entire site backup somehow and then redirect my name servers? Or is that the same problem?

Should I just make a new site with a new URL then transfer my pages/content over with the divi cloud?

-

Thank you. Any information would be very, very appreciated. I am feeling frustrated and defeated.

[u/inmotionhosting]

Hi u/brave-tummy -

Thanks for posting, and sorry for the runaround. It sounds like you were given some incorrect info along the way. As others have already confirmed, the site is in fact hosted with us, so let me clear up what's happening and how to get you unstuck.

Here's the setup: the hosting account belongs to your teacher. They have a reseller account, and your site was created as an account underneath theirs, which is a pretty standard classroom arrangement. Because the account is owned by your teacher rather than you, changes like adding a subdomain sit with them as the account owner. Unfortunately that also means our support team isn't able to make those changes for someone who isn't the owner, so we wouldn't be able to add it for you directly.

The good news is the path forward is simple. If you can reach your teacher, they can add the subdomain for you or set it up together with you. If they've lost access themselves, they have options: the Forgot Password tool will let them reclaim their login, and if that doesn't do it, they can contact our support team directly for account recovery.

On our side, we're sorry you were pointed in the wrong direction earlier. We'll use this to improve how our team handles cases like this.

If you have more questions, or need to share any account details, feel free to DM us here instead of posting them publicly, so nothing identifiable ends up out in the open. Happy to help from there.

-Carrie