MS Outlook / Blackberry 9700 Synch Problem

I was running MS Office Professional 2003 Upgrade and constantly used MS Outlook for ALL my contacts and e-mail. I bought a Blackberry 9700, had all my contact information copied from the older phone, Samsung Blackjack, which had synched very well with Outlook, and intended to synch the new Blackberry with Outlook, so that when I travel I could have all my contact information and e-mail accounts at the ready.

When I synched the Blackberry with Outlook, it removed ALL my contacts from Outlook. It added 4 -5 that I assume were on the simm card, but all else was lost.

I spoke with a technician at a local computer store who told me that once I rebooted my PC that all Outlook hidden / deleted files would be wiped out.

In the meantime, I had a new 1.5 Terabyte HD installed, had Windows 7 Professional installed on the new drive and had the older drive with all my old files, moved to a slave drive on my PC. I have since bought Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade and installed it on my PC, and just yesterday, I ordered MS Office Professional 2007 and waiting on it to arrive and install.

I understand the PC tech telling me that all my old Outlook Contacts were gone forever, but I find it hard to believe that anything is wiped off a computer, unless the HD is reformatted, and mine has not been.

When I receive and install the new MS Office Professional 2007, is there any chance that I can recover my older Outlook Contacts from the slave drive on my PC?

I have just been about to go nuts, losing all my years of Contacts.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks,

LeeM

I understand the PC tech telling me that all my old Outlook Contacts were gone forever, but I find it hard to believe that anything is wiped off a computer, unless the HD is reformatted, and mine has not been.

Wiped? No. Overwritten? Yes. And it looks like all your contacts, appointments, etc. were overwritten with the BB default examples when you synchronized your BB for the first time. So, unless your sync program created a backup, or you backed up Outlook before changing PDAs (which, with 20/20 hindsight, you undoubtedly know now you should have done) it probably is gone.

But, if I read it all correctly, you may not be totally lost - unless you got rid of your old Blackjack. If you still have your Blackjack, it should still have all your data, or at least up to the point you stopped using it. I would start over and set your computer up to use the Blackjack, then resync ENSURING you have the sync set so the PDA overwrites Outlook.

Then backup everything in Outlook, then migrate to the BB again, only this time, ENSURING you have the sync set so the Outlook overwrites PDA. Verify all is good, then change the default sync settings back to Sync.

Thanks Bill. I do have the old Blackjack, and will do just as you recommended.

I agree with your logo 100%; Freedom is not Free.

You are welcome. Please keep us posted.