Erased Contacts on MacBook and Mobile Me--Need Helping Resyncing iPhone

[MacTheKnife]

I bought an iPhone 3G two days ago and I'm loving it, but I ran into a problem yesterday.

Background info: I own a MacBook Pro and I'm a .mac (MobileMe) user. I normally use Entourage for my email contact info, so I had never populated my Mac Address Book before I bought the iPhone. I exported my Entourage contact info and imported it into Address Book. When I bought the iPhone, I downloaded my SIM card info from my previous phone onto the iPhone. When I synced the iPhone and MBP for the first time, it merged the contact info on my computer.

Problem: Yesterday, my computer initiated the .mac sync and asked whether I wanted to merge data on my compuer and .mac, or replace one with the other. Since I had been updating some contact info on my .mac (MobileMe) and it was more recent than what was on my computer, I opted for "replace computer with .mac data" instead of "merge data". That was a bad decision because somehow the result was that all of my contact info was wiped off both MobileMe and my computer. (Not sure why this happened, but that is what happened.) Since my iPhone was connected to my computer at the time, when I next looked at my iPhone, all of the contact info was GONE and what were left were just a multitude of phone numbers. Yes I started to panic a little....

Fortunately (very fortunately), I was able to do a restore procedure on my iPhone, which restored the contact info (as of the time of the backup). So I can use the iPhone right now with my contacts intact.

Dilemma: I want to sync my iPhone contacts with my computer, but if I choose to "sync contacts", the iPhone says it will erase all of the info on the iPhone (namely to replace it with what is on the computer, which is nothing). So how do I sync it so that the iPhone data remains and is copied onto the computer? Or alternatively, how do I export the iPhone data and then just import it into my computer without actually syncing?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[mac-evangelist]

Notes wiped out on sync

hi there,

i just found your post while looking for help sorting a similar problem out. i hope you may be able to help me.
i just got a new 3GS and am loving it.
i worked out how to sync notes from this forum as i use my phone for jotting down important thoughts/notes etc.
on syncing it worked fine the first couple of times. then on syncing today it wiped all my notes off the iphone!!!??
can you shed any light onto this? very frustrating.
i found my original notes in my email box on macmail but how can i 1)avoid this happening again and 2) get my original notes back onto my iphone?

i'm concerned i will keep losing data when i sync which defeats the object really!

hope you or someone can help

thanks!

 

[-aggie-]

hi there,

i just found your post while looking for help sorting a similar problem out. i hope you may be able to help me.
i just got a new 3GS and am loving it.
i worked out how to sync notes from this forum as i use my phone for jotting down important thoughts/notes etc.
on syncing it worked fine the first couple of times. then on syncing today it wiped all my notes off the iphone!!!??
can you shed any light onto this? very frustrating.
i found my original notes in my email box on macmail but how can i 1)avoid this happening again and 2) get my original notes back onto my iphone?

i'm concerned i will keep losing data when i sync which defeats the object really!

hope you or someone can help

thanks!

This would've been better as a new thread. I know you're new, but opening an old dead thread with a title that doesn't apply to you won't help you much. Also, you asked for help from the OP, but obviously he didn't get an answer at the time (he's probably figured it out by now, but who knows).

The only reason you probably lost your notes is that you unchecked note syncing in iTunes. What are your settings in the Tabs in the middle pane under Summary and Info?