Desperate

It is all I can do not to careen into an expletive-laden post here as I am on the verge of a panic attack.  For the second time in just a few months, the entire contents of my address book have completely vanished for no apparent reason.  The last time this happened I was able to recover quite a bit from my backup hard drive, and I backed up this file just last week...but for some reason even my backup is coming up empty.

I have spoken to Apple Tech Support and they have told me there is nothing that can be done to recover these files.  This is my entire database, all friends, all business contacts...everything...gone.

Has anyone run into this problem?  Anyone have any suggestions?

Freaking out over here...

Comments

[Alison]

Aside from the already mentioned Apple Time Capsule device, I suggest archiving your most important info on a dvd as an emergency back-up. Sure it sounds like old school tedium but I have found this to be a great lifesaver when all else fails.

Hope this helps. :)

[michelle/tangled wings]

oh no...take some deep breaths...wish i could be of help but i am lacking in the technical skills department...

[Lunarmusings]

I'm not sure what can be done at this point to recover what you have lost, but I offer something to do in the future. I have a Mac, and I use my address book, along with a back up hardrive. I also have an account with Plaxo. It retains all of you addresses and calendar items online for you for free, and will sinc with your computer everytime you make a change. So if you loose anything on your computer, Plaxo still has it and you can re install whatever information you have kept on Plaxo. www.plaxo.com.

I also believe that there a few other programs like this, but this is the one I know.

Good luck girlfriend, I know this can be just mind screwing at best!

[Kate]

This might be something you've already tried, but google something like "hard drive recovery" or "address book recovery." I recently had a Compact Flash card that was corrupted--some of the images, but not all--and could not for the life of me get them off of the card and onto my computer. I managed to find a piece of software that is able to read corrupted CF cards. I would not have thought there was a piece of software that would recover something like this--if something is corrupted, it's corrupted, right? But it was able to get 99% of the images back, bypassing the 2 or 3 that were corrupted fully and preventing me from transferring anything.

And--for having faith--forensic guys recover all sorts of crazy stuff from computer hard drives. When I was panicking over my CF card (and the possibility of losing a huge amount of income from not getting the images), I kept reminding myself of this. I kept saying to myself, "There is a solution to this, I just haven't found it yet."

Computer speaking, data is never lost until a hard drive over-writes it. So somewhere, somehow, if you had access to that data once, it is somewhere.

(hugs!)

[Nina]

Ack! I wish I wasn't so tech un-savvy. But am sending you lots of love and hope for recovery. What to do?
xo,
Nina

[wordybird]

i don't use a mac, but - does your e-mail program automatically save a copy of every e-mail you send? this may seem way too obvious, but go through your in- and outboxes and you should be able to recover quite a few of your e-mail addresses. then send a group e-mail to those folks describing your plight and asking them to send you all their contact info. it will at least get you started on rebuilding your address book. sometimes, in the initial panic after a mega computer screwup, it's easy to overlook some of the simple workarounds. hope this helps even a bit.

[melissa]

OH NO!! I am computer illiterate so I am of no help except to send you good vibes that you can recover your info! Love you!

[Lisa]

Ug. I wish I could help, but I got nothin' for ya, honey!
I really, really hope that you can recover your data!

[Crystal Mohrmann]

Here's another link that may be helpful and seems even more pertinent to your problem:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-70260.html

And worst case scenario, you could also try a file salvage software like this:

http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1

Hope these help!

[Crystal Mohrmann]

I recommend time machine as well...it comes with Apple Leopard. You can use it with any hard drive and it backs up all your info regularly.

In the meantime, I found this link. I'm not exactly sure what it means or if it will help, but it seems like it might be what you need:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080319065135344

[Tine]

We're having time machine and external hard drive (Costco is awesome for those) for backing up our machine. Something like this hasn't happened to us on a Mac ever. I wished I could help better, sigh!
Get time machine on some point, it is worth every penny!

Sending you a gigantic support hug!