O/T Outlook Express/Iphone disaster

[left4dead]

Bit of a weird one this but here goes....

This morning, for reasons I cannot explain, I lost all my 'contacts' from my Outlook Express here in the office. No problem I thought, I'll just plug my Iphone in and transfer them all back to the pc. BIG mistake..... before I knew it Itunes automatically 'sync'd' the phone to the Outlook Express which means now I've no contacts info in either my pc or my Iphone. Disaster! Every personal & business contact ever has disappeared within a matter of seconds - I don't even know my girlfriends number....

Any ideas or suggestions (other than to kill myself) gratefully received

[defianty]

I don't know much about Outlook Express, but I thought iTunes made a backup of your phone before it synced? I can't test this for sure as mine syncs to my home Mac and not the one I'm using now. Might be worth a look.

Either that or it makes a backup of your phone when it update the firmware. I updated mine the other night so I may be confusing it with that. If you've updated the firmware lately you may be lucky.

Take a look here...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414

[Histrally]

Do you back up your pc onto an external drive? If so do you include outlook in your back up? Providing you do all you have to do is go into your external drive and you should find the contacts there.
Not to hi jack your thread but I have a query as I am thinking about getting an iphone.
If you sync your iphone to your pop3 email account and you read an email on the iphone will it leave the email, like a blackberry, to come up on outlook or does it download it from the service provider? I am pretty sure it will duplicate it but I wanted to check.
Jerry

[VG65]

Hi Steve,

My techy says;

All the contacts are stored in a file ending in 'wab'. Outlook Express will be looking for this file in a specific location -If this file has been moved for any reason it won't find it and you will lose your contacts.What you could try is search on the computer for a file ending in (dot)wab - if there's more than one, the largest one is likely to be the one with all the contacts.
If you find it you should copy it (don't move it) to your desktop.
So next - from Outlook Express go to 'file' (top left hand corner), then import, then choose address book. This brings up a new window - click on the desktop icon, select the address book file (wab) and click 'open'.....that should
import all your contacts - These instructions are for Outlook Express 6 running on Windows XP...but other systems should be similar.


Good luck old chap

[Nick Moss]

I have an iPhone and sync with 2 PCs and also back up to mobileme.com.
I don't use Outlook Express, but used to use Outlook. Search your PC for .pst files to see if there is an auto back up anywhere

In Outlook Express click file/data file management , that should give you a list of the file locations, there may be an archive file.

I know it's too late now, but STOP using that stupid program, get on Mobile Me and use a different email client like Mozilla Thunderbird.

[defianty]

If you sync your iphone to your pop3 email account and you read an email on the iphone will it leave the email, like a blackberry, to come up on outlook or does it download it from the service provider? I am pretty sure it will duplicate it but I wanted to check.
Jerry

With a pop3 account you can select the option whether to delete emails after downloading them, or leave them there for a certain amount of time. My main Mac at home is set to download email and then delete it after 7 days. My iPhone is set to never delete from server. This way I get to see the email incoming on my phone and it's also stored on my Mac for safe keeping. For this particular email account it works perfectly for my needs. However, if I send an email using this account from my iPhone I won't have a copy of it on my main Mac. For this you'd need an Exchange account or similar.

Hope that helps.

[Histrally]

Stephen,
Yes it does. Thanks
Jerry

[left4dead]

OK guys & girls, thanks for the input. What a way to start the weekend

A number of things I can try it seems so I'll be back in the office tomorrow giving all your suggestions a whirl and - fingers crossed - one of them just might do the trick.....

In the meantime sitting here with a bottle in front of me (Vicki, a reference just for you ) I have just found some numbers stored on my sim card so all is not totally lost - I have found the number for the vet (even though the hound is perfectly well, thank you very much and, for that, I am grateful)

Saludos compadres

[VG65]

Let's hope one of them works for you.
As it's Easter you could always cheer yourself up with a Chocolate Jesus

[smallspeed]

this may or may-not work depending on when your iphone last backed up; its supposed to back up before each sync, but it doesn't always do it

in itunes:

edit > preferences > sync

should show you the latest backup file created BEFORE you last sync'ed and also when this file was created. Most important thing is if you synced and deleted everything, that you don't try to sync again as this could overwrite the back-up file with one of your semi-empty phone!

assuming the last back-up wasn't 12 months ago, and that you haven't tried syncing 2 or 3 times since you wiped your emails and contacts, then you can restore the phone and update it again from the backup file

there should be a how to on the internet somewhere, i've not done this on a pc, so it might be different and you don't want some 1/2 baked, 1/2 cut, hung over mac user guessing for you!..


for the future, in itunes you can set something to alert you if over a certain percentage of contacts, calendar events, etc., will be modified through the sync you're doing.. while its a continuing PITA for me everytime it pop's up, it does add a little bit of a fail safe..

also there is a setting in the sync options which allows you to choose whether you sync the phone with pc, the pc with phone, or sync both together so you get everything from both devices in both locations.. thats probably not the best description ever but hopefully you get what i mean.. if you use the third option its a bit safer

b

[left4dead]

you could always cheer yourself up with a Chocolate Jesus

Touché

[left4dead]

assuming the last back-up wasn't 12 months ago, and that you haven't tried syncing 2 or 3 times since you wiped your emails and contacts, then you can restore the phone and update it again from the backup file

Aah, that's exactlywhat I did yesterday afternoon before I realised there was an Itunes back up...

I think I have tried everything over the past day & a half and all to no avail but it has taught me several things: not to be so reliant on these flamin' machines and not to expect the information to always be there - even if it was there five minutes before - and to back everything up regularly.

A lesson well learnt.....

Thanks all - really appreciate it.