I managed to over write the index page with that of another page, that other page is no longer available. can I access the actual pages to edit things manually?
Sitecake reaquires the website to have index page. It will not start without index page.
Good thing is that Sitecake is making backup files in case you need to do a roll back. Go to sitecake-backup/ folder and copy index page from there.
Or, create any kind of index page with main navigation linking to your pages and start Sitecake.
Thanks, I say new to sitecake, so where and how do I navigate to the backup folder, forgive me if it is obvious. I inherited the site form someone else and they just used the web editing page
When you unpack Sitecake on your server. Run it at least once on your website. Then open /sitecake/sitecake-backup/ on the server.
If you have white label version folder will be
/cms/sitecake-backup/