I'm hoping someone will just be able to say what I have done is correct .. for backing up my php forum/bb which I have hosted on my own domain. The forum is slightly different than normal where as its used for perm storage of recipes online,  I add them all myself BY HAND, which might let on how much works gone into this. I asked on trademe in the computer forum about how to do this, and a nice soul did tell me, but paranoid idiot that I am, I need to check I was told the correct thing to do. 

Which is to go to my cpanel on my hosted domain and go to phpmyadmin go to databases then choose export and when that page opens up select both data bases and make sure sql is ticked for the file type then tick save as file, then go, and then save the exported file to where I want on my computer.

Hopefully someone on here will just be able to say "yup thats it" so I can stop having nightmares about the whole forum vanishing into thin air ! Oh and I've also been saving via the admin area on the board itself, just over cautious !

If anyones interested the site is http://trademecooks.net.nz/index.php  

thanks for any help in advance,  and have a awesome weekend :)

EdenM