Lost contacts and apps! Please help ASAP!

[justmetoo1]

Hello! I am in hopes someone can help me here. I've just upgraded my Samsung Captivate to the leaked gingerbread 2.3 via Odin from 2.2 froyo (via ATT & Kies) and now I've lost all apps and contacts! Before anyone says they will restore from my google account, they were NOT synced there! Somehow the sync was shut off on the account! I don't know how it got that way, but now I've lost everything. I need my contacts back as well as some important voice notes from an aftermarket voice recorder.
I did backup all of my folders that were on the phone through my computer, but I don't know if that got the information I need. I am happy to shoot someone some paypal if they are able to help. This is very important and I need this stuff ASAP. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks, Eric

 

[Moscow Desire]

Well, somebody has to break the news, so it may as well be me.

Contacts are kept on internal ph memory, and when we change versions of the OS, complete versions, not the updates, everything stored on internal memory is gone. And it doesn't come back.

You said you copied folders to your pc. Which folders? From the SD? Or were you rooted and copied the internal ph memory folders?

As with your downloaded recorder app, where was it installed originally? If it was on internal memory, it's gone. If it was installed to SD, then you should be able to download the app again, and copy the contents of the apps folder back to your phone. In theory that is, you might be able to get back the recordings.

As with your contacts, the contacts file is called contacts.db . If you copied the phones internal memory folders, you should be able to find it. There is a possibility you can copy it back, thus retrieving your contacts. Can't promise the newer version will accept it tho.

Sorry this had to happen, but it's always better to do syncs to your pc weekly. Never trust the cloud.

 

[justmetoo1]

Thanks for the response. OK, so I have rooted the phone and will try to use some data recovery software. do you know where the contacts.db is stored?

 

[Moscow Desire]

The location will vary from Rom to Rom version, but I believe it's at

data/data/com.google.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db

You might have to use a program like BusyBox to locate it though.

You can check this link for some useful info if you ever want to go tinkering around in there.

Android – How to poke around the sqlite3 databases ? Show me the code! – By Davanum Srinivas

But the problem is, you installed a new full version Rom replacing the old one which contained your original db. So the original is gone, replaced by an empty one from 2.3.