iPhone 3G updated to iOS 4.1... No contacts?

[Afflicted Max]

I'm at my dad's house for the first time in 6 months, and he asked me to do some software updates for him.

Step one was to upgrade his "family" laptop, which has 1GB of RAM and is running Windows Vista. Easy: I upgraded that to Win7. I copied over all the files he said were important to my public folder on my MBP, and then transferred them back across.

Then he asked me to update the OS on his iPhone 3G. He apparently hasn't plugged it in his computer for over a year, but the update went smoothly. I was testing it post-install, and noticed everything was gone. All of his contacts, music, apps, notes, sms messages, and email... all gone. I sat there nervously and scoured the internet for answers, to no avail. What can I do to recover them? I've tried the one back up on the computer, which I made right before the install, and nothing happened.

TL;DR: I updated laptop to Win7, and iPhone to 3G. No other back ups. No contacts. What do?

 

[mikelegacy]

I'm at my dad's house for the first time in 6 months, and he asked me to do some software updates for him.

Step one was to upgrade his "family" laptop, which has 1GB of RAM and is running Windows Vista. Easy: I upgraded that to Win7. I copied over all the files he said were important to my public folder on my MBP, and then transferred them back across.

Then he asked me to update the OS on his iPhone 3G. He apparently hasn't plugged it in his computer for over a year, but the update went smoothly. I was testing it post-install, and noticed everything was gone. All of his contacts, music, apps, notes, sms messages, and email... all gone. I sat there nervously and scoured the internet for answers, to no avail. What can I do to recover them? I've tried the one back up on the computer, which I made right before the install, and nothing happened.

TL;DR: I updated laptop to Win7, and iPhone to 3G. No other back ups. No contacts. What do?

The contacts should have been saved onto his iTunes, that is if you did the backup correctly. Have you fully synced the phone? If not, you'll wanna do a full sync. If you can't find the files in his iTunes library. Go to whatever folder his iTunes redirects files to and all his files should be in there. On your windows computer, the default would most likely be Music->iTunes Music.