Yeah – I posted that one! Man. That was fun. I think the guy who I installed it for ended up switching hosts because of that whole situation.
I will say this, though: it turned out the previous installation of WordPress was the 1and1.com installation. meaning, they have a WordPress version that is some sort of 1-click install – they do it all for you. That’s what this guy had originally done – just used the 1-click. He decided he wanted more control and functionality – but he couldn’t get it with that installation, so he thought he’d just do it himself (or rather, have the Install4Free team do it for him).
It was a nightmare, though – in the end, I had to resort to doing a fake MT import. My own personal blog was previously MT, so I still had the file for importing those entries. I copied all of his old posts and information by hand and turned it into the MT format. Then I did the installation and imported his old “MT” blog.
So, I don’t know if they do that with *every* database – but most certainly if you go with them, and you want WordPress installed there – DO NOT use their 1-click version. I can’t tell you for sure that if you use *any* of their databases that they hide such things from their clients – maybe this guy’s issue was just that- that he had previously used that service, I don’t know – I certainly would hope they wouldn’t do that. But just ask a lot of questions before you decide.