Lost all my contacts. No sync involved

[Stephan Brown]

I see lots of info on restoring contacts lost in a synch but my situation is different. This morning I had all my contacts and now there are none.

Last week I had used the vzw contacts transfer app and so I thought I could at least use that to get those contacts back but even running that didn't get me any contacts back.

Can anyone help me in what to do? I need my contacts back.

 

[Hawk]

well, You need to first figure out what made your contacts disappear.
But if that is too time-consuming or is a dead-end, then here are the only things I can think of...
Have you checked the program on your PC that you sync with to see if your contacts are still there? If you do not know where they sync, that can be a problem. Connect your phone to iPhones, and use the Slide to unlock to stop any attempted sync. Click on your phone in the left column of iTunes and then click on Info (located in the top middle of the iPhone screen). It should tell you right there where you sync your contact to. If it's not checked... Don't quite panic yet. If it is checked, open that program and see if your contacts are there. If they are not... Still don't panic quite yet.
Ok, lets day you haven't been syncing your contacts, or they are missing from the program you sync to. If you have sync'ed your phone at all since getting it (and after you added all your contacts) then you should be able to recover everything. The most recent sync before you discovered everything was missing is what we need.

Here's the hard part. You are going to have to restore your phone. When it finishes restoring, it will ask if you want to restore your profile from the last sync. You can choose the drop-down menu to choose a different sync (which is a must if you have synced the now empty phone since discovering it). Again, try to choose a sync that would be one that is most recent that you would have all your data on.
Once you choose that and tell it to restore that profile, all you have to do is wait for it to finish (watch for conflict error messages. if you walk away and come back in an hour, it might still be sitting there waiting for instructions).
Your previous data should be synced back onto your phone. Once you have verified that everything is back, then sync your phone again and make sure that the programs it syncs to are updated with the missing data as well.
You should be good from there.

One more thing. You might be asked to back up your phone when you start the restore. Say no. There is no point. Also, if you get a message that there is newer firmware available, it is more or less up to you if you want to update it. I personally say to choose no and get everything back in working order before worrying about an update. BUT it's possible that you might have to, depending on if Apple is still signing that firmware or not.

Good luck

 

[Europa]

After you get them added back in, back them up in your Gmail/Yahoo account. Then sync them to the iPhone in Tunes. If you ever lose them again, you simply sync them back on. No restore is needed. This won't be necessary after 5.0 is released because they will be stored in the cloud.

iTunes Info Tab:

 

[Stephan Brown]

I don't think I've actually connected my phone to a computer since the day I got it. So I'm not sure a Restore would actually bring anything back.

 

[Hawk]

Well, that would be a problem. You might want to contact verizon and see if they can tell you if their migration app stored your contacts anywhere that you can get to it. Otherwise.... I hate to say it, but you might be SOL.
For future reference, sync your phone every couple of of days.

 

[Stephan Brown]

Really? How can the phone just randomly lose all my contacts? I'm not synching every few days. I'll switch to something else.

 

[Hawk]

Actually, I have never heard of an iPhone just losing contacts like that. Yours is an unusual case.
Let me amend that. I have never heard of it without someone trying to sync to a different PC that didn't have their info on it, and they lost their music, but not their apps or contacts.

Can I ask what your aversion is to syncing your phone? It just makes sense to keep it backed up. And not just the iPhone, but Blackberries, Androids, and just about any other smartphone out there should be backed up on a regular basis, in case something happen and you need to get the data back.

 

[Europa]

You don't need to sync every few days. If you had synced those contacts with Gmail just once, on the day you got the phone, you could quickly sync them back on right now. Of course, if you hadn't synced since that day, this wouldn't include any new contacts that you had added between then and the moment before they disappeared. Like I said earlier, this will be a non-issue in September. After you add them back in, sync with Google and that will keep them safe until then.

 

[Hawk]

Let me ask you, were you using any Exchange type services or Push services for email, contacts and calendar?
If you recently configured something like that, then that would also be a reason why you lost your contacts on the phone. Of course, during setup, you would have gotten a warning and had to acknowledge it before completing the setup and wiping the existing information.