Restoring pim.vol file? - General Questions and Answers

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.

Related

Please Help me to delete old partnerships in activesync

Hi could some one please help me delete some old partnerships in activesync, I use windows XP and activesync 3.7.1, everything works fine, but as i keep installing crap on my old XDA and also the new XDA-2 i oftern hard reset and then reinstall new or different programs.
The problem is each time i do this i have to make a new name for the partnership, i.e john-xda, john_xda, johns-xda etc etc, i have about 20 existing names listed , I know this is not the end of the world but it is anoying, and when you go to send a file via IR or BT from the laptop up comes a list of at least 20 old xda partnership names to choose from.
Please any ideas how to delets all of them apart from the one thats currently in use
Thanks
John
have you tried under activesync ? would seem logic to make it possible to delete partnerships from there
otherwise you can delete the folder made by the patnership under
my documents
Thanks for the ideas, I have looked in activesync but there are no options there to delete them, I have deleted the folders in my documents ( and the desk top short cuts to them) but when i try and send a file i still get shown the list of 20 plus names to send to, but the real problem is you cant use the same name twice.
thanks for trying tho
john
have you tried doing a search in regedit on the pc
it would be a typical place to store them
Go to ActiveSync while there's no device plugged in. Then select 'File', "Delete Partnership' until they're all gone.
Thanks Peter thak worked fine, i had looked in activesync but this was with a device connected.
thanks for bot of you for your help
John
is it possible to 're-link' the old partnership with an XDA after a hard reset?
b
why would you want to ?
you can still use the same name
you can still get access to all the files
you can still get access to the backup
so then why do you want the get the old patnership ?
just thought it might be easier than deleting the old partnership and creating a new one.
Also, do you know if the SMS messages are stored when the XDA syncs up? If so, how do I get the back onto my phone after a hard reset?
Cheers,
B
Old Partnership
If when you delete the partnership you answer no to delete files and the XDA has the same name the new partnership will use the same link area (/my documents/pocketpcXXmy documents)
ah HA! Awesome. But do you know about the text messages (SMS)?
B
Hi. If you had a partnership with your pc when you first synchonized and now you hard-reset your device, you might want to delete the old partnership if you don't need its documents anymore. That could be done in a very easy way even when the device is not connected. the steps are:
-Turn on pc
-double click active sync incon without connecting the device
-go to file>mobile device and select the partnership's name you wanna delete, when selected a big black dot will appear next to it.
-then file>delete parnership
Done!
Fantastic!! Although that still doesn't really answer my question :wink:
b
you cant sync sms's back if you took a backup and restore it you get the sms back or if you used the tool at yorch.net

How do I backup my files before a re-flash?

I want to save all my text messages, contacts, call logs, favorites, notes, tasks, etc.
I CANNOT install any new software on my phone, and even if I could, I couldn't run it. I can't start any programs on the phone except Calendar, Contacts, and search. Everything else is screwed up.
I can see the files in Mobile Device on Windows, but ActiveSync does not work, and some of the files are not accessible. Which files do I need to copy? I've got pim.vol already, but what specifically does that contain? Where are text messages stored? I plan to do a hard reset, and if that works, to copy the backups back onto the phone and then back them up through a normal method. Then I can re-flash with something newer to make it functional again.
When I look at Properties for \Databases\MSN Object ID, it says 356 bytes and 0 records, last modified 1/19/2008, which is around the date when I last flashed my phone to upgrade to WM6.
Oh! Is cemail.vol where the mail is stored? It's only 800 kB, last modified 8/12/2008, which is the day my phone crapped out and the day after I installed Funambol synchronizer.
Try PPC PimBackup, it will backup all your stuff and its realy easy to manage backups!
soololi said:
Try PPC PimBackup, it will backup all your stuff and its realy easy to manage backups!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but the OP says
I CANNOT install any new software on my phone, and even if I could, I couldn't run it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so PIM backup may not work...
@endolith
PIM.vol : PIM stands for Personal Information Management, PIM.vol contains PIM data like appointments, tasks, notes etc...
Sorry, but i don't know how to backup data without running any backup program...
soololi said:
Try PPC PimBackup
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't. Read my post.
The Reaper said:
PIM.vol : PIM stands for Personal Information Management, PIM.vol contains PIM data like appointments, tasks, notes etc...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a list of exactly what this file contains?
Sorry, but i don't know how to backup data without running any backup program...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I can copy files like PIM.vol and cemail.vol, and then if I copy them back onto the same AKU I have heard that it will recover them (and then I can use something like PPC PimBackup before reflashing).

WM6 address book/contacts deleted (after ActiveSync?) ?

Hi all,
First of all, I've seen F*!K, undelete contacts? - xda-developers, but I'm not sure it applies completely to me, so here it goes...
Somehow, all my contacts have disappeared - except for five: two on phone (and three others on the SIM). The only event I can think of, that may have caused this, is that I tried using ActiveSync on an EEE PC with one of those efw things active (which redirects all file writes to RAM), and no Microsoft Outlook installed.
I have found logs in \Windows\ActiveSync folder on the phone, called CtrlLogX.txt, posted the last entries here http://pastebin.com/f4ba24ed6 - however, the log refers to mypc1 (my usual PC, which also does not have Outlook installed, but never seemed to cause any problems like this), which is not the EEE PC above (that EEE PC doesn't seem to be referred to anywhere in these logs).
Additionally, I've found a pim.vol file, 580 KB, in the root of the phone, which if opened in a text editor, actually STILL seems contain old contacts... The phone has not been rebooted (I think) ever since that EEE syncing event (and some weeks before that)..
The SMSes still show contacts with names, however, when I click on the contact, it tells me "Confirm: This person is not in your contact list. Do you wish to create a new contact for this person?" I of course enter NO, because I'm afraid "yes" would overwrite the pim.vol file...
Can anyone explain what has happened, and how to possibly get the contacts back? In line with that, I'd also ask:
- Where are ActiveSync logs kept on the phone (that is, is there anything else than \Windows\ActiveSync\CtrlLogX.txt)
- How are contacts stored on WM6 (is it only the pim.vol file - or is there anything else? If contacts were saved as one file per contact, and if ActiveSync deletes these files - then would it be possible to undelete the contact files [given deletion on mobile device also works by deleting entries in partition table, but not zeroing the actual memory]?)
Thanks for any responses...
[bump] any help? Still haven't rebooted the phone - perhaps there is some precautinary measure I could take before rebooting? Already backed up the pim.vol...
[bump] ok... decided to bite the bullet, and rebooted the phone - still no contacts, but the pim.vol file is still as big as before... So what should I make of this - that the pim.vol is corrupt? How could I repair it (short of copying all human-readable contents inside by hand)?
Anyone know anyone at Microsoft that could share the structure of the pim.vol file, LOL
By the way, if this is NOT the forum to ask questions like these - could someone at least suggest a forum where I could ask about my problem?
Thanks...
You can backup the pim.vol file first. And then you can download a problem called "spb Backup". You can view the pim.vol by this software.
WM6 address book/contacts deleted (after ActiveSync?) ? - corrupt pim.vol
Secguard, thanks for your response!
secguard said:
You can backup the pim.vol file first. And then you can download a problem called "spb Backup". You can view the pim.vol by this software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I trieb Spb Backup briefly, but I simply cannot see how it can view the pim.vol file - it can backup personal information data which is in the pim.vol.
Well, I finally managed to solve my problem thanks to an old Sprite backup I had, which had an uncorrupt pim.vol file. Those contacts that did show up (mentioned in OP) were apparently added later - after the original corruption occured?..
Anyways, I used the PIM Backup software (which besides being freeware, also saves data in human-parsable CSV like format) to backup these "later" contacts; then I restored the old Sprite backup with an uncorrupted pim.vol file, and then I used PIM Backup again to append the "later" contacts to the uncorrupted pim.vol. Finally, used PIM Backup to backup this appended pim.vol file, and I am not worried about contacts data that much!
Well, just wanted to write a bit about what I've found out so far about similar problems - maybe help out other lost souls like mine Searching for "corrupt pim.vol" does indeed return quite a bit of hits - I should've thought about that phrase earlier
Part 1
First of all, I am not the only one who has had a problem with a corrupt pim.vol file (see also post 578 - PIM Backup; Delete Active Sync Relationship deletes my Contacts =(; ActiveSync 3.x Troubleshooting Guide - Missing Calendar, Contacts ...; contacts recovery after active sync; ActiveSync Deleted my phone contacts , when i removed the profile ...):
Question: XDA Orbit 2 - Lost Contact List. Please help - 4WinMobile.com said:
http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/phone-edition-general/16269-xda-orbit-2-lost-contact-list-please-help.html
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I did not have "clicked" an option that it synchronize the contacts because I do not have Outlook installed on my computers. I do not know what is the reason that all my contacts gone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NEW PIM Backup v2.8 NEW - Page 110 - xda-developers said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=299705&page=110
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ActiveSync was delete ALL of my contacts when partnership was broken. I’ve open this “empty” pim.vol via HEX-editor and FOUND ALL deleted phone numbers…
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same as me - except those are most likely not leftover deleted contacts, but parts of the call log, as noted here:
All contact names are lost . . . - Motorola Q Forum | Everything Q said:
http://www.everythingq.com/forum/motorola-q/all-contact-names-are-lost-15016.html
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After doing a lot of digging aroung on Google and looking at my pim.vol file in notepad, it did appear I lost all my CONTACTS info. The names and phone numbers that were still in the file were my RECENT CALLS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, if pim.vol gets corrupted and contact data is missing, nothing can retrieve the missing data - my uncorrupted pim.vol is some 700 KB, the corrupted one is some 500 KB - as said before, those contacts that can be seen from a hex editor are most likely recent calls. In that case, it cannot be read neither by PIM Backup, nor anything else that reads pim.vol the usual way:
pocketpc developer Re: Retrieve contacts from database(EDB) API said:
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=30928125&threadid=30554221
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Pimbackup is good (great, even) if you can access your pim.vol, but I can't (via the mobile device).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my case too - Pim Backup could only retrieve the same three contacts from the corrupt pim.vol as I got shown in Contacts (probably since it uses poutlook to read the contacts?) ..
The files pim.vol and cemail.vol seem to be central to contacts and sms messages:
NEW PIM Backup v2.8 NEW - Page 13 - xda-developers said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1204075#post1204075
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Everything is retrieved from cemail.vol and pim.vol used by tmail.exe and poutlook.exe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WM6 address book/contacts deleted (after ActiveSync?) ? - corrupt pim.vol
Part 2
Now, pim.vol and cemail.vol seem to be special files - not files as such, but instead databases:
Reading pim.vol / EDB-File on a PC - microsoft.public.pocketpc.developer | Google Groups said:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.pocketpc.developer/browse_thread/thread/a1bb6e70c6c34479?fwc=1&pli=1
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pim.vol is a CEDB/EDB database. Use CeOpenDatabaseEx2 to open the database and other related functions to read record from it. Refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms923930.aspx.
In particular, "clog.db" contains the call log history.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pocketpc developer Reading pim.vol / EDB-File on a PC said:
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30208939/reading-pimvol--edbfil.aspx
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I want to read the data from a pim.vol-file on a desktop-Computer. (In my case, this file is from a PDA running Windows Mobile 05) What I already know is:
- pim.vol contains all contacts, Appointments and Tasks
- the data is saved in a EDB-Database-Format
- the easiest way to read it out is through the POOM-API (on the Windows Mobile device itself)
...
Is the specification for the file-format publicly available somewhere? If so, I cold try to write my own parser for this file format. Or is there already any PC-Application that I could use to read this data?
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=30208950&threadid=30208939
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The format is not published and here you have two issues - both the .edb
file format and also the PIM data layout. You'd be better writing a simple
service provider for the device (calling POOM) which you can query from the
desktop over RAPI or sockets etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In which PIM edb database my inbox is saved said:
http://forum.soft32.com/pda/PIM-edb-database-inbox-saved-ftopict58079.html
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The volume is "pim.vol" (Actually, the volume is not pim.vol. - cemail.vol) You can use a database viewer (try one at http://www.smartphonedn.com/libraries/dbviewsp.html) or just enumerate all databases at this volume from your program to find the database you are looking for.
You need to use CEDB (not eDB) to access your email database directly. However, it is recommended to use CEMAPI and not CEDB directly. The internal format can be changed or database can be moved from release to release. So if you access the database directly your application will be broken in this case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pim.vol format? - Mombu the Microsoft Forum said:
http://www.mombu.com/microsoft/pocket-pc-developer/t-pimvol-format-1531518.html
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The best way is to use POOM on the device and write your own app to interface with this data that you can use to talk over your activesync connection to a desktop component. The underlying format is EDB for the Windows Mobile 5.0 pim database, the APIs for which are documented in the WM5.0 SDK, but you'll find it much easier to use POOM to do the hard work for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How to read a pim.vol file - Stack Overflow said:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/554578/how-to-read-a-pim-vol-file
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There is no desktop based way to read vol files.
Vol files are CE database files which can be in one of two formats (CEDB, EDB). The pim.vol file is in EDB format. There is no desktop database libraries for these formats.
You can write a Windows Mobile application to export any vol file (it's not that hard). The problems you will have is that the pim.vol database table format is different between the different versions of WM.
If you want something to be WM version agnostic, you could use the POOM API, which is the WM native API for getting access to the PIM data. It's a lot slower than the direct database access tho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Corrupt pim.vol file - xda-developers said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=298798
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What you will need to do is to downgrade back to the AKU level that you were at when you saved the pim.vol. Then copy the pim.vol back to your phone and sync with Activesync so that everything is updated...
From what we have found, pim.vol files cannot be used from other AKU roms. So, a pim.vol form 2.0 will not work with 3.3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now, from all these it really does not seem that one can read pim.vol and cemail.vol short of programming an application for a mobile device. However, for pim.vol, one must mention user Sasha and his fantastic perl script that is a binary parser for pim.vol files:
pocketpc developer Parser for pim.vol said:
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=30999264&threadid=30208939
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I found the english text and numbers are plain text in pim.vol file. As result I made a small program that parse binary data well and gives tel numbers as result (first it gives numbers from last calls list and then contact list):
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The source is given in the post - and it even worked for me, for some corrupted entries - however, those are again, most likely call logs, and also, most of the stuff I got back was in the format:
Contacts Databasecol;12845087
so it didn't help me too much..
Also, one can use the great XdaUtils / itsutils command line utilities XDADeveloperWiki - Xda Utils, to browse the phone databases. Parts of the source mention:
http://nah6.com/~itsme/cvs-xdadevtools/itsutils/src/pdblist.cpp said:
http://nah6.com/~itsme/cvs-xdadevtools/itsutils/src/pdblist.cpp
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* on wm2005 the internal database api changed, and unfortunately the
* external database api was not changed. leading to a not working api
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe that is why, when one executes "pdblist -v", one gets cemail.vol listed - but not pim.vol!! Thus, cemail can be browsed through these tools, but not pim.vol ("pdblist -v pim.vol" for me results with "ERROR: CeUnmountDBVol(pim.vol) - The parameter is incorrect."). However, all of the SMSes from cemail.vol - in fact all data from all acccessible databases - can be dumped and they are readable too (except this dump cannot be restored) from the command line by using:
Code:
pdblist -D -r>alldb.txt
alldb.txt will be some 2MB text file, which will also contain SMS text messages.. Apparently there are plans for these command line utilities to also offer restore:
http://nah6.com/~itsme/cvs-xdadevtools/itsutils/src/pdblist.cpp said:
http://nah6.com/~itsme/cvs-xdadevtools/itsutils/src/pdblist.cpp
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// todo:
// - add itsutils interface for wm2005 edb databases
// *DONE -> PoomInterface
// - add delete record function
// - add import database from text file function
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but who knows if that will get implemented..
Pretty much the same data given by XdaUtils (that is, cemail.vol yes, pim.vol no) can also be seen from dbviewsp (see above for link) running on the mobile phone.
It is possible to backup the pim.vol file on my phone directly - using a rename trick; but the same is not possible with cemail.vol:
Pim.vol for Contacts & Master Reset - PPCGeeks said:
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=15671
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As far as i know you can copy the pim.vol file, but the phone will not let you paste it. I tried to do that with my cemail.vol file when I got my new phone so I could keep all my sms messages but it told me that the file is in use.
If you copied your old pim.vol file paste it in the new phone under file explorer/my device. if it wont allow you to paste it because of the old pim.vol file already in the new device, just rename the old file to pin then paste the new PIM file there and soft reset. after the soft reset you should be able to delete the pin file and you new contacts will be added
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The page Backup & Restore your Cemail . vol easily - xda-developers shows a MortScript that should theoretically save the cemail.vol file; it seems to work for some, didn't for me. Maybe because of this:
pocketpc developer Re: Backup / Restore cemail.vol said:
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=29338960&threadid=29338958
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You shouldn't try to directly backup/restore the databases because they contain links to Oids in other tables. Since Oids are assigned by the database engine and not persisted in a backup they will be invalid when you restore. You'd be better to use CEMAPI enumerate the accounts, folders and messages and persist in some format of your own choice, then use CEMAPI to write them back again. This would also allow you backup/restore across different OS versions.
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Well, that should be it - hope this helps someone..
Cheers !

Serra/Raphael PIM question

Hi All,
just a quick (and probably stupid) question. Can i copy the PIM.VOL file from my Serra to my SD card and then Hard Reset my Serra and then just copy it back and have all my contacts back ? Or is that just a little bit too easy ?
Thanks for your help !
It works, but you need to use Total Commander (or something similar) to copy it back (you need to over-write the stock pim.vol). I'm not 100% sure it's necessary, but if you first shut off TF3D (settings-today-items) and then restore pim.vol, when you re-start TF3D you will also get back all of your contact favorites in the Contact tab. This is the only way to do that that I'm aware of. Pim.vol restores all of your pim data except for messages. Those are stored in cemail.vol (I think), but it is a royal bugger to copy that file. If anyone knows how to do it, I'm all ears.
Farmer Ted said:
It works, but you need to use Total Commander (or something similar) to copy it back (you need to over-write the stock pim.vol). I'm not 100% sure it's necessary, but if you first shut off TF3D (settings-today-items) and then restore pim.vol, when you re-start TF3D you will also get back all of your contact favorites in the Contact tab. This is the only way to do that that I'm aware of. Pim.vol restores all of your pim data except for messages. Those are stored in cemail.vol (I think), but it is a royal bugger to copy that file. If anyone knows how to do it, I'm all ears.
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Hi Ted,
thanks for that ! Yeah, i got total commander ... i've been messing about with Windows Mobile devices for a while now and that allways annoyed me that you have to spend 1 hour + every time i hard reset just sorting my contacts out ...
Thanks again, you just made my life a whole lot easier ... my Serra needs resetting and i was reluctant to do it coz of the contacts issue ...
MancOrbit said:
Hi Ted,
thanks for that ! Yeah, i got total commander ... i've been messing about with Windows Mobile devices for a while now and that allways annoyed me that you have to spend 1 hour + every time i hard reset just sorting my contacts out ...
Thanks again, you just made my life a whole lot easier ... my Serra needs resetting and i was reluctant to do it coz of the contacts issue ...
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You can always use Pimbackup. It restores everything, except for the contact favorites, and it's fast. If you do the pim.vol trick, though, make sure that you only restore messages with Pimbackup. Restoring contacts will remove your contact favorites.

Broken "Messaging" -no sms -no mail accounts

Hey Guys - I have a huge Problem ...
I was playing around with SKtools and "optimizing" the registry ... I dont know if this has anything to do with it and its the first time i'm posting here for a Problem ..
following problem : in Manila tag "messages" there are no more messages - all my sms are gone and im not able to create new ones ... i also cannot access "messaging" in start menue or settings...
same with mail accounts - cannot see mine nor create or edit a new one ...
can anyone help me please ? is this just a broken link somewhere ? Are my messages still eventually stored anywhere and if yes where ?
i would really appreciate your Help
sorry for my english
It could be registry errors.
Try to restore your backup.
well ... i dont find any option for a backup in sk tools concerning automated optimisation of the registry ..
then hard reset is another option...
next time install a proper backup tools like Sprite Backup & backup regularly
well i know
it seems that outlook is broken - is there a possibility to manually search the files/folders where sms and mail messages are stored ?
As long as your WM not discarded all the corrupted data may be you still can get it.
but I'm not sure b'coz I have never try that before.
yes - thats what i thought .. the data might still be present ...
does anyone know the folder / file where sms and mail messages are normally stored ? also I cant't find the "tmail.exe" in my System - does this have to do anything with it ? Is someone out there who has a little background knowledge ?
I had the same problem. It was fixed by going to the sd card and deleting some folder called ~"Inbox.1234123" or something.
Its some error b/c of having 2 different folders for storing attachments. Deleting that folder fixed it for me. It still pops up every now and then, i go and delete that folder, and all works perfect afterwards...
talbotlives said:
I had the same problem. It was fixed by going to the sd card and deleting some folder called ~"Inbox.1234123" or something.
Its some error b/c of having 2 different folders for storing attachments. Deleting that folder fixed it for me. It still pops up every now and then, i go and delete that folder, and all works perfect afterwards...
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Brilliant. Had this problem and two of these files (as I'm on a mac I only have my contacts etc backed up, but not my entire system)
Thus removing these two files saved me a lot of pain.
Thanks!
joan

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