Factory data reset just cost me my contacts...,

Renegade Mechanic

And Im just f*ckin flabbergasted at how bad a time its happened. I specifically left the sd card alone, not to be wiped, songs pics etc all still there (go ahead and tell me I should have taken it out, I dare you). Anyway I have them written down but of course the list wasnt updated recently which doesnt matter anyway as it is nowhere to be seen. Its an Xperia Z and Im just wondering can that data be recovered like sometimes on computers? As Im not in a position to "root" and install recovery apps, Are there people who can plug into ypur phone and recover it? Mabye the liked of those "Fuzzd up" shops that, among plenty of things, unlock phones. Or am I just gonna have to face the music on this.

My name is URL

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

(go ahead and tell me I should have taken it out, I dare you)

You should have backed up your contacts.

Renegade Mechanic

My name is URL wrote: »

You should have backed up your contacts.

Once again at least most of them are on paper in physical form but given what Ive done during my search I know Im not going to find them so its irrelevant at this point.

rizzodun

I'm guessing its an android? It may be possible you had your contacts backed up through your google account.

Fr_Dougal

How do you know someone has an Xperia Z? They tell you.

Czarcasm

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

Once again at least most of them are on paper in physical form but given what Ive done during my search I know Im not going to find them so its irrelevant at this point.

I'm going to assume you have an SD card adapter and a laptop available that you can plug this into.

Download Recuva.

Load it up on your laptop and run through the steps to start recovering data from your SD card.

There will be a folder in the recovered data called "Contacts".


You can thank me later

Gannicus

Was it Fónfix.com? I recently sent them a phone that had a broken screen. Eveything else was grand but the touch screen was broken and unresponsive. LITERALLY all they had to do was replace the screen. It was even written on the technician's report

I purposely asked them not to flash the phone as I was unable to back my stuff up and take it off the phone (work related numbers etc). I-mailed them and asked them. I also wrote a note and selotaped it to the phone itself telling them not to do it that I had important work contacts I needed to keep.

Got the phone back and I was advised they had flashed it. I was like a demon they, then wanted €50 excess (phone was insured) for the repairs to my phone. I am currently in a dispute with them to get my €50 back.

Brian_Zeluz

Contacts on an android phone are stored on internal memory. I just took the external card out of my android phone and I could still see my contacts so it's your own fault. You should have either backed up your data or copied the contacts to the SIM. I doubt it's possible to easily retrieve the data and would be rather expensive if you could.

Cody Pomeray

I once wiped all the holiday pics from my camera, managed to get it to one of those stores on Moore Street and they recovered them. Anyone know how that works? Does the data stay there forever or what?

Presume the same applies to phone chips.

Renegade Mechanic

rizzodun wrote: »

I'm guessing its an android? It may be possible you had your contacts backed up through your google account.

Im afraid not, I let as little data as possible out to the net (which I suppose, if recent revelations are anything to go by, may be redundant..). I just had contacts on phone and backed up on the card. The folder was called "/sdcard/System/PIM/PM******.vcf".
Obviously the phone is wiped during a reset but Ive always been able to restore from the card. Now /PIM/ is empty, 0 bytes:(

Renegade Mechanic

Brian_Zeluz wrote: »

Contacts on an android phone are stored on internal memory. I just took the external card out of my android phone and I could still see my contacts so it's your own fault. You should have either backed up your data or copied the contacts to the SIM. I doubt it's possible to easily retrieve the data and would be rather expensive if you could.

Im not going to keep repeating the fact that they were on BOTH..

Renegade Mechanic

Czarcasm wrote: »

I'm going to assume you have an SD card adapter and a laptop available that you can plug this into.

Download Recuva.

Load it up on your laptop and run through the steps to start recovering data from your SD card.

There will be a folder in the recovered data called "Contacts".


You can thank me later

Right, this is good:)
I just need to get a computer and well see how this goes.

frozenfrozen

instead of space being wiped its just marked as being able to be written over again and so the information will remain there until that space is used to store something else.

Brian_Zeluz

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

Im not going to keep repeating the fact that they were on BOTH..

To be fair the only form of digital storage you mentioned was an (external) SD card.

Renegade Mechanic

Brian_Zeluz wrote: »

To be fair the only form of digital storage you mentioned was an (external) SD card.

It seems youre right. I do apologise:)

Banjo String

Might be obvious.

Op presuming this is an Android. Have you signed in to gmail yet?

contacts should auto appear when you do.

Cody Pomeray

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

I once wiped all the holiday pics from my camera, managed to get it to one of those stores on Moore Street and they recovered them. Anyone know how that works? Does the data stay there forever or what?

Presume the same applies to phone chips.

In simple terms, there's an index at the start of the card that tells the device where everything is. So it might say something like "file X is stored at sectors 20592-21024". When you delete the file, all that happens is that the reference in the index is removed, but the data remains in the sectors until something else overwrites it. So if you get there in time, you can recover it.

Renegade Mechanic

SamHall wrote: »

Might be obvious.

Op presuming this is an Android. Have you signed in to gmail yet?

contacts should auto appear when you do.

Yeah, I stopped em:o
At any rate theres something I need to do now:D

Amirani

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

Renegade Mechanic

Czarcasm wrote: »

I'm going to assume you have an SD card adapter and a laptop available that you can plug this into.

Download Recuva.

Load it up on your laptop and run through the steps to start recovering data from your SD card.

There will be a folder in the recovered data called "Contacts".


You can thank me later

You sir, have gotten a fella out of trouble, big time! Im not exactly computer literate but I could find my way around that. Recovered it put it back in under /System/PIM and was able to import into phone when card was re-mounted.
Thank you very, very much!

Ace Attorney

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

You sir, have gotten a fella out of trouble, big time! Im not exactly computer literate but I could find my way around that. Recovered it put it back in under /System/PIM and was able to import into phone when card was re-mounted.
Thank you very, very much!

Now you should connect your phone to the laptop and backup your contacts and phone on the Sony Pc companion software that came with your phone or if you just want your contacts back them up to your google account

Renegade Mechanic

Thatdoesnt looksafe tome AHHHHHHH wrote: »

Now you should connect your phone to the laptop and backup your contacts and phone on the Sony Pc companion software that came with your phone or if you just want your contacts back them up to your google account

Done:o

minidazzler

Now you need to click start > type cmd into the search bar and hit enter > Then on the CMD Prompt write "delete System32"...

anncoates

B.A.C.K U.P

Best At Doing Wheelies

Hate that

Renegade Mechanic

minidazzler wrote: »

Now you need to click start > type cmd into the search bar and hit enter > Then on the CMD Prompt write "delete System32"...

Yeah.... I remember being told it would make my computer more efficient one time. Thanks, Ill try that!

The Backwards Man

Should have gone to Specsavers.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Do what everyone else does, post a message on Facebook telling people to message you with their number as you wiped your phone.

Brian_Zeluz

There's something not right here, a genuine question was asked and a working solution was found on after hours. How wonderfully odd.