Desperate for help - Lost all my contact during Sync with iPhone

[hm]

Gosh, i was sycn my phone and i open my address book. Suddenly it hanged and all my address book contacts are wiped out.
I had to force quit my address book.
After i do another sync, my iPhone went to sync with the blank address book and all my contacts are gone sob...
Can any guru here help me to restore the contact if there is any way. I am not sure if mac can auto back up or do something...cos all my years of contacts are gone now....

Please help.

[hacktic]

check if your contacts are still stored in your SIM card memory

[Rale]

shouldn't iTunes have back ups of ur iPhone? Let's say u restore iPhone to factory settings, it will prompt u to set it up as either 'a new phone' or the various versions of ur back ups right? That should restore ur contacts.

[mauler]

I believe iTune's back-up is as good as the last sync.  If hm hadn't synced again after losing his contacts, he might've been able to restore the previously saved contents.  Since he synced, the back-up now may be as good as his contactless phone.

As small measures of redundancy, I usually make back-ups of my Address Book and Calendar when I am unsure of what a sync will produce.  At least I have something to fall back on.  If a sync goes badly (usually as a matter of user error than hardware fault), I can restore my data.  I also select the "Replace information on this iPhone" in iTunes to overwrite the phone's data with those from my computer.  I also turn on the "Show data alert" in iSync and set it to warn me whenever ANY data on my computer gets changed.

hm:  Sorry to hear of the loss of data.  If you have a MobileMe account and have backed-up your information to it (assuming it's not set to auto-sync), you can reset the data on your Mac with those previously saved.  The stuff may not be current but it should be entirely empty, either.

Hope that helps.

Have a happy CNY!

[gabra53]

As small measures of redundancy, I usually make back-ups of my Address Book and Calendar when I am unsure of what a sync will produce.  At least I have something to fall back on...

Hmm, besides mobileme, can you give examples on what sorta program to use for backups?
I'm new to the whole iphone thingy too...

[mauler]

No, I cannot.  I am sorry.

Apart from iTunes, Address Book, Calendar, and MobileMe, I cannot give examples of what I do not use.  Although I did hear that MissingSync was something that would work.  Else, you could help yourself better by Googling or searching this or other fora.

[ian]

just curious are your contacts still on your web mobileme www.me.com  ? am sure they are gone but worth checking -  another thing have u at anytime used timemachine in the past two months ?

[Rale]

i do notice that my iTunes does keep at least 3 versions of my back ups ie. my last 3 syncs. So i thought it might be possible.

[kazeo]

Try Funambol? I use it and it's quite good.

http://www.funambol.com/solutions/iphone.php

[mauler]

i do notice that my iTunes does keep at least 3 versions of my back ups ie. my last 3 syncs. So i thought it might be possible.

You are right, but it seems a bit irregular.  I've seen multiple copies with different dates but not all the time.

hm: it's worth checking.  iTunes>Preferences>Devices.  You may find more than one of the same profile but with different dates.  See if there's one profile that's dated before you lost your contacts.  If there is one, then connect the phone, run iTunes.  Right-click or control-click on the phone's icon when it appears and select "Restore from backup".  Choose the correct profile and continue.

Hope that helps.

[abyblr]

i do notice that my iTunes does keep at least 3 versions of my back ups ie. my last 3 syncs. So i thought it might be possible.

You are right, but it seems a bit irregular.  I've seen multiple copies with different dates but not all the time.

hm: it's worth checking.  iTunes>Preferences>Devices.  You may find more than one of the same profile but with different dates.  See if there's one profile that's dated before you lost your contacts.  If there is one, then connect the phone, run iTunes.  Right-click or control-click on the phone's icon when it appears and select "Restore from backup".  Choose the correct profile and continue.

Hope that helps.

OMG, after searching hours on the net on how to get back my contacts, I found you... nobody told that you can right click on the phone and do a restore of a previous back up. I searched on the entire net for tat, people were asking me to install new software to do that. I was able to see a back up but no restore option of that back up. a restore button thr wud hav solved the problem, but will jobs do anything the simple way, I wanted to back up my contacts before upgrading my phone and during that process I sync to blank address book and all gone. Iphone could have been the best if nt for all its restictions, why would it allow me to take a back up of my contacts on a file or something.

Anyway tnx a ton mauler u made life simple and am gonna folow this blog in future for help.

Cheers

[mauler]

OMG, after searching hours on the net on how to get back my contacts, I found you... nobody told that you can right click on the phone and do a restore of a previous back up. I searched on the entire net for tat, people were asking me to install new software to do that. I was able to see a back up but no restore option of that back up. a restore button thr wud hav solved the problem, but will jobs do anything the simple way, I wanted to back up my contacts before upgrading my phone and during that process I sync to blank address book and all gone. Iphone could have been the best if nt for all its restictions, why would it allow me to take a back up of my contacts on a file or something.

Anyway tnx a ton mauler u made life simple and am gonna folow this blog in future for help.

Cheers

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