All the content on my site was gone. When I went to investigate, I found my error log was filled with the following error:

WordPress database error Table './database_name/prefix_posts' is marked as crashed and should be repaired for query SELECT YEAR(post_date) AS `year`, MONTH(post_date) AS `month`, count(ID) as posts FROM prefix_posts  WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' GROUP BY YEAR(post_date), MONTH(post_date) ORDER BY post_date DESC  made by require, require_once, include, do_action, call_user_func_array, flexx_after_content, get_sidebar, locate_template, load_template, require_once, dynamic_sidebar, call_user_func_array, WP_Widget->display_callback, WP_Widget_Archives->widget, wp_get_archives

A very scary looking error, but it was easy to fix.

My Preferred Repair Method

[user@server ~/public_html]$ mysql -u user -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1120449
Server version: 5.1.48 MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL v2 license

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> connect database
Connection id:    1120477
Current database: database

mysql> select * from prefix_posts limit 1;
ERROR 2006 (HY000): MySQL server has gone away
No connection. Trying to reconnect...
Connection id:    1120568
Current database: database

ERROR 145 (HY000): Table './database/prefix_posts' is marked as crashed and should be repaired
mysql> repair table prefix_posts;
+-----------------------+--------+----------+----------+
| Table                 | Op     | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+-----------------------+--------+----------+----------+
| database.prefix_posts | repair | status   | OK       |
+-----------------------+--------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (3.56 sec)

mysql> select * from prefix_posts limit 1;
+----+-------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------+------------+---------------+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+---------+--------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------+------------+------------+----------------+---------------+
| ID | post_author | post_date           | post_date_gmt       | post_content | post_title | post_category | post_excerpt | post_status | comment_status | ping_status | post_password | post_name | to_ping | pinged | post_modified       | post_modified_gmt   | post_content_filtered | post_parent | guid                                                       | menu_order | post_type  | post_mime_type | comment_count |
+----+-------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------+------------+---------------+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+---------+--------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------+------------+------------+----------------+---------------+
| 12 |           8 | 2008-05-20 10:09:49 | 2008-05-20 15:09:49 |              | 308image1  |             0 |              | inherit     | open           | open        |               | 308image1 |         |        | 2008-05-20 10:09:49 | 2008-05-20 15:09:49 |                       |           0 | http://gaarai.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/308image1.gif |          0 | attachment | image/gif      |             0 |
+----+-------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------+------------+---------------+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+---------+--------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------------------------+------------+------------+----------------+---------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> exit
Bye
[user@server ~/public_html]$ 

For me, this was the easiest and quickest way to repair the table.

Repairing Tables with phpMyAdmin

For you, you might prefer to use phpMyAdmin. Fortunately, repairing a table with phpMyAdmin is easy.

1. Log in to your phpMyAdmin or connect to it via your cPanel back-end.
2. Select the database with the crashed table.
3. Put a checkmark next to each crashed table.
4. Select “Repair table” from the “With selected:” drop down at the bottom of the list.
5. Let phpMyAdmin do its thing.