I have had some success recreating 4 sites that were lost by looking at the version table in each db, installing the correct version of DNN and configuring the connection strings, installing the skin (listed in portalsettings table) on a different site and copying the correct skin and container directories to the new site. The structure of the site is there (e.g. www.nemdstem.org), but the content is missing and I cannot login.

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

I need a few more details.

1. What happened?
2. What did you then do?
3. Did you make any backups prior to trying to recreate the sites?

Some of these answers may help me to make some suggestions.

But, and this is for everyone, I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining good backups of your database AND your web directory. Always make a backup before beginning major work on your site. For safety, download the backups to a local machine.

Oh, just thinking about this briefly, it may be that some of the problems are due to the PortalID of the sites now being different than the PortalID of the previous sites. There's a possibility that this can be patched a bit.

Problems logging in most likely are due to a different machineKey in the web.config file assuming that you installed a new one.

If that is the case, you may be able to use RecoverPassword.aspx from Jon Sheely's blog, twentytech.net.

PLEASE make backups before doing anything. For complete safety, take a backup, install it somewhere other than your current site and do your work on that copy.