Iphone os4 update - lost contacts and messages solution

Not working for me. If I try to load the old backup I made before the update my gets stuck on the apple logo in a restart loop. Cant even turn it off... Any idea?

That didn't work for me either. I upgrade to iOS4 this morning. iTunes said it was backing up my iPhone 3G during the upgrade process.
After the upgrade was installed on my phone, I had all my apps, pics, and music.
But, I am missing all of my contacts, texts, mail settings, etc.
Has anybody found a solution for this?
I tried to restore from a back up I did previously, but my backup is password protected and the password I used is not working.
Searching through these forums for an answer is a pain. Hope somebody finds out something soon.

HERE IS THE IPHONE FIX FOR LOST CONTACTS AFTER INSTALLING OS4.

This is very simple.

1. go to settings
2. select mail, contacts etc
3. scroll down to import sim contacts and click
4. wait until finished and you have your contacts back.

Why this happens............

when backing up and syncing the phone the iphone does not store your contacts unless you tell it to. This is NOT automatic.

when on itunes page, you need select and tick sync contacts with...
you then have options for windows contacts , google, yahoo etc, if selecting windows, it stores them within windows.

Hope this helps you all.

David

this does not work

I am having the same problem, I called apple and they said it was a known issue. I have tried restoring from 5 different back ups and 3 different computers and nothing! I have lost 12 years worth of contacts and notes.

YOU ARE GODSENT!!! IT WORKED!! THANKS SO MUCH!!

Note: You will reference www.iphonebackupextractor.com/help-howto-support/ [This will have many of the answers and guide references you need]

LISTEN UP EVERYONE! I FOUND THE REAL SOLUTION!

I too panicked all day yesterday when I updated to the new operating system and lost all my contacts. I Googled and read thread after thread to find a result, but nothing was promising and I couldn't get my contacts back.

It wasn't until I was chatting with a friend online who is a tech guru and offered to help me. It took us roughly 2 hours thoguh AIM conversation (because I am not tech savvy and we were both doing trial and error processes), and I feel I owe it to this community to help out.

There are many steps to this process, but it will definitely work. I guarantee it!

1) Visit www.iphonebackupextractor.com and download the free version [upzip the file too]. This version will only allow you to extract one file at a time, but that is okay. You just need to locate the "Library" section (this is crucial). Save this Library extraction file to your desktop.

2) Next visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlitebrowser/ and download the SQLiteBrowser. You will also have to extract folders and run the exe.file.

3) By now, you have at "Libary" file saved on your desktop and have the SQliteBrowswer downloaded and extracted. Open up the SQLite Database application go to File. Select that "Libary" folder you saved on desktop. We are looking for a file named AddressBook.sqlitedb. This AddressBook.sqlitedb is where all your past information is saved.

4) Once you have this file opened in SQLite, go to Execute SQL and type the following information (which is found at www.iphonebackupextractor.com/help-howto-and-support/: SELECT ABPerson.first, ABPerson.last, ABMultiValue.value FROM ABPerson, ABMultiValue WHERE ABMultiValue.record_id = ABPerson.ROWID

6) Once you have all that information in the Execute SQL section of SQLite (which was: SELECT ABPerson.first, ABPerson.last, ABMultiValue.value FROM ABPerson, ABMultiValue WHERE ABMultiValue.record_id = ABPerson.ROWID), go ahead and "Execute query". This will bring up all your contact information that you are DYING to see. You can save a log for your reference

7) Now, this next step is a little tricky. Although you now have your contact info save, you will have either manually enter this on your iPhone or use a Google Import/Export Sync process involved Windows Excel. My friend had me type something like "select * address_book" [this is not exactly it though] into the SQL String box, and this combined all contacts names and phone numbers. You then export and save it as a cvs file. From there, you can go to your Google account and sync/import it into your contacts. Afterward, you have to go into iTunes and sync your contacts with Google (which now has all the contacts inside).

It is very unfortunate that I do not recall exactly that string name to combine the contacts and phone numbers for easy extractions [importing/exporting]. I thought it was Select * address_book, but I am missing something at the end. It is also important to reopen that Library -> Addressbook -> AddressBook.sqlitedb or the system crashes.

Uh oh, I left out the MOST IMPORTANT process, and this is finding your contacts in iTunes backup. It is as follows for Vista users:

Go into your user name [mind was David] -> AppData -> Roaming -> Apple Computer -> MobileSync -> Backup -> and you should then be able to see all your backup files. Find the a date you are happy with and run iPhone BackupExtractor.exe on that file. It will make sense once your in the program.

Sorry for not being as intelligent at this as you guys. I only want to offer my help. My iPhone is not up and running with all contacts inside.

Good luck!

This does not work perhaps all the time

To Jimi.Yekrang's comment "This does not work perhaps all the time."

Perhaps? Did you try it? If you did not try it, then why state that it does not work? My iPhone has all the same symptoms everyone else obtained with the loss of contacts, losing your back-up files in iTunes, not being able to sync with your Google contacts, etc.

"This does not work perhaps all the time," is a statement I find false in. All sorts of intelligent people here have recommended different methods which helped cure their phone. It did not cure my phone. Therefore, I have proposed a method which allowed me to obtain all 11 years of contacts I on my iPhone.

Provide something useful Jimi, not a comment that has no validity behind it.

Wow, a whole lot of steps to fix this..just to make the product work as it should. Probably says something...

the last solution is neither working for me. He cannot restore because of my iPhone is encrypted.........

I did the import from SIM contacts as suggested. It did import very old contacts, not the ones that were there when I did the upgrade. Kind of weird that the contact list was old, about 1 year old.