contacts file - General Questions and Answers

dunno if anyone knows...
i was in a situation tonight, a friend of mines sim card is begining to go bad. since our phones are capable of more than they appear, i wanted to copy his sims phone #s to my phone as a backup, to my contacts list
after a hour of looking i could not find the contacts list database file
does it exist as a regular file anywhere ?
what i ended up doing, i had a extra sim card on me, so i copied all my phone #s from my contacts to my sim card
deleted all my phone #s from my contacts
put his card in
copied his sim card to my contacts
put the blank sim card in and copied from contacts back to sim
but it would have been nice to just rename my contacts db, make a new one, copy his in, rename his and back it up to a sd card, then rename mine to bring everything back to normal
so... does anyone know if the contacts list is stored in some sort of database file ? and if so, where is it / whats it called ?
if not, this might be room for a new program / mod / hack
-Mario

What you where looking for, though years ago, was the PIM.VOL file in the root of the device.
You can copy this over with Total Commander and also overwrite it when copying it back (or better to rename original first then copy new pim.vol over to root, wait 20 second then reset device)

Related

microsoft exchange syncing and storing emails on SD card hack problem?

hello... i posted this on other boards but was suggested that i post here so hopefully i'll get some responses here:
i recently got a treo 750 for my boss and have it syncing with our exchange server. thats fine, everything syncs. problem is, my boss has 10,000+ email messages that i know he's going to want all on the treo. along with its megabytes and megabytes of attachments. i've read where there's a registry hack to move the inbox location from the internal memory out to the storage card. (AttachPath, and PropertyPath)
i successfully did it on my hp ipaq hw6945. but on the treo 750, it keeps renaming my storage card to storage card2, and then creating a folder called storage card which i assume is still on the internal memory. i read somewhere that the reason for that is because the messaging today plugin runs first before it recognizes that there is a storage card. so when the storage card is finally recognized and there is already a folder called storage card, it renames to storage card2. the suggestion was to disable the messaging today plugin. i did that. still renames my storage card. i then disabled all my today plugins, soft reset, and it still renames my storage card! this is getting frustrating. is it something about the treo 750 that the registry hack won't work? has anyone with a treo 750 successfully changed their inbox location from the \windows\messaging folder to their storage card?
anyone????
I posted a response to a similar question on the Treocentral forum. Basically, you'd probably need to wait for Windows Mobile 6 (if there is an upgrade for existing Treo 750 users). There is a video demo out there about this functionality, but basically WM 6 allows you to carry the last couple days or weeks worth of email. The rest is stored on your Exchange server. When you need something (email, attachments, etc), you can perform a search wherever you have network connection, and your Treo will search for that information on your Exchange server at work. This way, you can download all that you need, whenever and wherever you have a connection.
SD Card Storing Emails
I have the same problem; here is a workaround - not pretty but it's fast and works
1. before reset; use wireless manager to shut off phone
2. take out sd card (i don't really take it out; just let it snap out partway so it's no longer recognized
3. reboot
4. use file explorer to delete newly created (empty and actually on phone not SD card) folder "StorageCard2
5. put your sd card back in and it's properly recognized as StorageCard2
6. use wireless manager to turn phone back on
you can skip turning phone on/off but have to be quick with file explorer to delete the newly created StorageCard2 folder or, if activesync starts right away, you might get some email stored on this folder that you loose when you delete it.
My understanding is that, when WM boots, the registry entry is looking for StorageCard2 before the drivers to find the card are loaded so it creates the folder in RAM. I'm not aware of any permanent fix other that the above workaround with each reset. Fortunately, don't reset that often so this isn't a big issue
Just a quick comment, guys.
As far as I know the only registry setting causing mentioned issue is PropertyPath. AttachPath works fine (at least for me and my Treo 750).
Email & Storage Card 2 !
I posted this at treocetral, hope it helps.
Email & Storage Card 2 !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK here goes,
For anyone with lots of emails and attachments this is relevent. I have been trying for 3 days to work out storing the email, email attachments and internet explorer temopory files on the mini sd card. As most who try this know that windows does not play well and continues to create a new folder called storage card and displaced the actual storage card as storage card 2.
This creates many problems. Any installed program will not work from the icon or shortcut as it points to the wrong place and the files intended to now be stored on the storage card are actually on a folder called storage card in the device root (not saving the intended space). In addition the new folder is locked by processes like active sync, ie, or the today screen messaging plug-in. Very problematic. There are lots of discussion about solutions from disabling the plug-in and manually hacking the registry. I have tried smart phone tweaker, tweaker 2k and direct registry edits. All of which do not help.
The final solution I have discovered is as follows.
01. Place the internet explorer temp files back on the device in the windows folder. This seems to be the biggest problem that locks the files. I do not do so much browsing that these files arevery big or add up quickly.
02. Placed the emails back on the device in the windows sub-folder. As these are text and not html they do not take up much room.
03. Now for the attachments. Mine are 37 MB! This is the meat of the problem. I went into the registry and only changed the AttachPath to the storage card and it worked. This saves me 37 MB on the device and does not yet force the new storage card/storage card2 problem.
I have not included all the registry keys and paths as a quick Google search will bring them up.
I just though people should know. What a pain in the rear, but now it is better.
Regards
islandsnow said:
anyone????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason why you are having the problem is because you chose the option to store the messages on your memorycard while the memory card was not inserted in the device. It went looking for "storage card" and couldn't find it, so the OS naturally creaded the directory so the e-mail could function. Afterwards when you did insert the memory card, the file system naturally named it "storage card2" because it loads it as a virtual folder and "storage card" was already taken. If you delete "storage card" which is located on the device, your memory card will automatically change it's name from "storage card2" to "storage card". That's a quick fix. The only problem you may run into would be if you have programs installed to the memory card. Those programs will look for files on the card assuming it's still "storage card2". I ran into the same issue, deleted the "storage card" folder and fixed my e-mail issue. But right after I had to hard reset to reinstall all my programs on the card to get them working again. Have fun...

Setting up MS. my phone service.

Guys I need some help with setting up MY Phone- online data backup service.
At the moment all the different file types from my mem. card are being backed up like cab,zip,txt files etc.Is there a way to set the service to backup only certain file types like for example only .doc or even better to assign only one folder to be backed up?
On my storage card I have a folder full of cabs it's almost 200mb and I don't really need an online backup of those files in my "my phone" account, any way to exclude certain files from being backed up?

Lost contacts after copying to SIM card...how to restore?

Hi,
I've got a problem and I hope someone can help me out here! I've tried several searches, and remedies, but can't find the "helping hand" I need.
I have an HTC Vogue, AKA P3450.
Windows Mobile 6, ROM version 1.11.404.1G NLD (dutch version)
What was I trying to do?
I bought an android phone and wanted to migrate my contacts to the android phone.
Outlook
So I opened Outlook, deleted all calendar entries, contacts etc. and synchronized. I figured that since Outlook was empty, all data from my phone would be copied to Outlook. No such luck: only a few deleted call histories were put in Outlook. Nothing else.
Copying contacts to SIM card
So then I copied my contacts to my SIM-card. I knew it can only hold 50 contacts with limited info. I wanted to put 50 at a time on my SIM, then put SIM in new phone, copy the contacts and start again with the next 50.
Problem
But now, I can't find my original contacts anymore! All I have are the 50 that I copied to my SIM, but they are not actually ON the SIM. The icon before each name shows they are on my phone.
Also, when I put the SIM card in my new phone, there are no contacts whatsoever.
Does anyone know if I still have the contacts, but I'm looking at a selection of some kind? (All filters are off.)
Remedies
I installed PPCPimBackup to at least save my pim.vol file. This was after the copying-to-SIM. So I have that file. No idea if it only has 50 or all contacts.
I also installed a trial of SpbBackup to view the pim.vol file, but I cannot see the file in SpbBackup, so I can't check if all my contact are in there.
I am at a loss here, can someone help me out? I would really appreciate it!
(PS: Sorry for long post, wanted to make sure all info was in there.)
Damn
I'll ask around for ya.
Nobody has any idea?

Restoring pim.vol file?

Hello!
I have a HTC Touch Diamond.
I dunno what happened, but i tried to sync it with windows 7 syncing tool, wanted to backup my contacts. But it said i didnt have a program installed for the contacts (dont have outlook, didnt seem to work with thunderbird), and when i checked again on the phone all my contacts except a few were gone. I think the ones that are still there, were on the phone and not the sim (or vice versa)
I do have a backup of my pim.vol file, and i managed to open it in wordpad and see it does contain at least some contacts which are missing on the phone.
How the ¤#%¤ do i restore them? I tried renaming the "new", wrong, pim.vol file, putting the correct one there. I did that outlook-thing in windows\startup\, etc. After the reset, it seems to be the correct pim.vol in the root dir on my phone. However, once i try to go into my contacts, most of them are still missing. I check root dir again, and the wrong .vol file has replaced the one i put there.
How do i either 1) get the contacts back on the phone 2) extract them with some software, either on WM or on my PC so i can manually add them?
When i open it in wordpad its really annoying to see them, spaces here and there etc so it would take me days to restore my hundreds of contacts...
Help appreciated!
Here's your best bet: do a hard reset. After the phone boots up, disable tf3d or manila/sense, if it's running, then use total commander to copy pim.vol to your device root. Soft reset, and you should be good to go.
Your next best option would be to use a database explorer to open up your copy of pim.vol and then export the contents and see if you can re-import them (try sk tools and the mount volume command-just a guess).
Farmer Ted said:
Here's your best bet: do a hard reset. After the phone boots up, disable tf3d or manila/sense, if it's running, then use total commander to copy pim.vol to your device root. Soft reset, and you should be good to go.
Your next best option would be to use a database explorer to open up your copy of pim.vol and then export the contents and see if you can re-import them (try sk tools and the mount volume command-just a guess).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do i do a hard reset again? And does it remove all my data, installed programs etc?
Going to try the sk tools first, anyway. Thanks!
Hmm. Im not sure, but maybe my contacts are somehow still in the phone, but hidden? When i browse my text messages, i see the name (not just number) of the senders. But those names are not amongst the names that i can see in the "contacts" page. How is that possible, and is there a chance that some setting was changed to only show SIM contacts or something? I searched all over the contact settings but couldn't find anything...
You could be seeing some messages and contacts that are on the sim card; if you have sk tools, you can look in the SIM Contacts and SIM SMS tools.
You may not need a hard reset, if you're pim.vol is basically empty. I think you're just better off over-writing an empty one with one stored on your sd card. It's probably just worth it to try over-writing with total commander (and soft reset), and see if you get everything back. The hard reset will wipe all your user settings/data.
Farmer Ted said:
You could be seeing some messages and contacts that are on the sim card; if you have sk tools, you can look in the SIM Contacts and SIM SMS tools.
You may not need a hard reset, if you're pim.vol is basically empty. I think you're just better off over-writing an empty one with one stored on your sd card. It's probably just worth it to try over-writing with total commander (and soft reset), and see if you get everything back. The hard reset will wipe all your user settings/data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing is, the contacts stored on the sim are still available in the "contacts" on the phone.
All the other ones which are/were stored on the phone, are gone.. Im going to try to force-replace the current pim.vol with the one that contains my contacts with Total Commander now.. I didn't get the "mount volume" thing with sk tools to work.
Well, i managed to overwrite the pim.vol file now. But after i reset, the size of the .pim file is wrong again and the contacts still aren't there.
How do i solve this? :/
pelle123 said:
Well, i managed to overwrite the pim.vol file now. But after i reset, the size of the .pim file is wrong again and the contacts still aren't there.
How do i solve this? :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try using SK tools to empty all your pim data (with the PIM information tool). Then try over-writing it again. That's my only guess. I've had issues over-writing pim.vol, even after a flash. Sometimes it works perfectly, which is great because it's fast and easy to do. Other times, it just doesn't work for me.
With 'mount volume', you just select that under the 'Action' menu, then navigate to pim.vol and select it. You may need to change the name to pim2.vol, or something like that, because there's already a pim.vol mounted on the route of your device. I'm not guaranteeing this will work, it's just a suggestion. It still may not open it up. You could also get the demo of "Pocket Database Editor"; it will allow you to open up a copy of pim.vol. Not sure it's going to help, though.
Farmer Ted said:
Try using SK tools to empty all your pim data (with the PIM information tool). Then try over-writing it again. That's my only guess. I've had issues over-writing pim.vol, even after a flash. Sometimes it works perfectly, which is great because it's fast and easy to do. Other times, it just doesn't work for me.
With 'mount volume', you just select that under the 'Action' menu, then navigate to pim.vol and select it. You may need to change the name to pim2.vol, or something like that, because there's already a pim.vol mounted on the route of your device. I'm not guaranteeing this will work, it's just a suggestion. It still may not open it up. You could also get the demo of "Pocket Database Editor"; it will allow you to open up a copy of pim.vol. Not sure it's going to help, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all i really appreciate your help.
Removed all PIM information and tried to put the "correct" one there, didn't help.
When trying the mount volume thing, i mount the pim.vol file which i've seen contains names from my contacts which i cannot find anywhere on the phone. However i looked through all the databases in the .vol file i mounted and couldn't find my numbers anywhere.
But like i said, if i open it in wordpad, and search for a name that i know was in my contact list and isn't any more, it's in there.. it just doesn't show up.
This is driving me crazy.. really need all those numbers..
Any other tips? Isn't there some software that can extract the relevant data from the .vol file? There should be, no? Or at least could be.. Considering that PIM Backup software exists and the fact that you're able to view databases in the SKtools software...
I think the main databases you'll need to export off the backup pim.vol are the Contacts Database (has phone #'s), the Contacts Group Database, and the EmailRecipient one. You need to export them one at a time. Check the xml-you may need to change the path (from storage card to device root) as well as the name (if it's pim2.vol). I'd actually export all, although you'll probably see duplicates for the real \pim.vol. It's gonna be a pain.
Farmer Ted said:
I think the main databases you'll need to export off the backup pim.vol are the Contacts Database (has phone #'s), the Contacts Group Database, and the EmailRecipient one. You need to export them one at a time. Check the xml-you may need to change the path (from storage card to device root) as well as the name (if it's pim2.vol). I'd actually export all, although you'll probably see duplicates for the real \pim.vol. It's gonna be a pain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing is, i managed to mount the real pim.vol and i saw all the databases. However the amount of entries in the contacts database is the same as in the "wrong" pim.vol... I previewed the databases in SKtools and couldnt find the rest of my contacts in any database..
I think this is what happened to me;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=454586
When i read that post, i remembered that i deleted 2 old sync relationships (they were really old, probably 10-15 months) and that's why my contacts are gone...
Any tips for solution are welcome..
I restored my pim.vol and it worked
Sorry to revive this old thread but I had this problem too, and this thread kept coming up in my searches. I had to post my solution somewhere.
I did a sync without backing up :facepalm: and I saw that pim.vol had some of my contacts. I tried all of the above but none of it worked. in the end. I used Sashimi to restore a copy of the Pim.vol i made from my phone directly after I realised I'd inadvertently deleted all my contacts. I could see in the pim.vol that there were some contacts that were missing using txt editor. When sashimi finished, it said reboot and delete the pim.deleteme file. So I reset and saw that pim.deleteme was a few megs bigger than my original pim.vol (voodoo magic!). So I renamed it to pim2.vol instead of deleting it and used sashimi to restore from that one and all my contacts reappeared. I hope that helps someone if anyone actually uses windows mobile anymore..... probably not.

[Q] How do I transfer contacts saved on my phone (or SD card) to my GMail account?

I have some vcard files on my SD Card that contain my contacts...but they aren't saved to my Gmail account. It would be nice if I was able to log into my gmail account (typically after I flash a new rom or something...) and it loaded my contacts that way...rather than always having to Import/Export them from my SD Card.
I've noticed that a LOT of the time when I import/export them from my sd card, i lose a lot of my contacts... when I import them, some of them literally just aren't there...and I don't understand why.
So I figure, if I'm able to keep them updated on my gmail account, it'll just be a more seamless transition for when I wipe my phone when flashing roms.
Nevermind.. I just sorta figured it out.
You can plug your phone into your computer, copy the vCard files onto your hard drive... log into Gmail, go to Contacts, then ADD CONTACTS, then IMPORT them using the vCard files..
Only problem is now... I can't figure out where the phone saved the vCard files on the SD Card, like...I don't know what directory to find them in.
Anyone have any idea what directory Android saves your vCard files in by default?
EDIT: nevermind, I found that out as well... I just went to the root of the SD Card, and under the "SEARCH" bar on the top right, I just typed ".vcf", and it showed me ALL of the vCard files on my SD Card/.
I won't delete this...because if someone comes across this and is trying to figure out how to do this as well...it may be helpful to them.

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