T-Mobile: we probably lost all your Sidekick data

Microsoft loses Sidekick user's personal data

I saw this article and thought about you all Sidekick users.

Posted on Oct 11, 2009 10:20 pm by Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

Category |iPhone »Phones
Contacts, calendar entries, photographs and other personal information of Sidekick users has almost certainly been lost for good following a service disruption at Sidekick provider Danger, the Microsoft subsidiary said on Saturday.

The amount of data and number of users affected wasn't disclosed by Microsoft or T-Mobile, but the Sidekick support forums are buzzing with pleas from users looking for tips on how to restore their devices or get their data back.

On Saturday, Microsoft said any data that users had on their devices and is no longer there has almost certainly been permanently lost.

"That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low," T-Mobile said in a statement.

The problems have been going on since earlier this week and have been compounded by users who attempted to reset their devices to restore functionality. The reset clears the Sidekick of stored data -- data which is usually backed to the Danger servers but has now been lost from there.

"We continue to advise customers to NOT reset their device by removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost," T-Mobile said.

T-Mobile and Microsoft said they would provide an update on data recovery efforts on Monday.

The service failure is an embarrassment for Microsoft and T-Mobile and again highlights the potential danger of entrusting trusting personal data to the cloud, a model that many service providers are pushing as a safe and more convenient way to handle data.


Microsoft loses Sidekick users' personal data | Phones | iPhone Central | Macworld
 
Frisky Feline said:
I did not lose any information on my sidekick. I feel bad for others who lose their contacts. I don't plan to get another mobile. i am waiting for my sidekick to die. i am pretty sure that sidekick would stays alive longer, i hope. heheh
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i have no problems with sidekick after it went out. i rather to stay with it til it died out. i have it for more than 6 years.
 
T-Mobile says:
NEW YORK -
Owners of Sidekick phones, made by a Microsoft subsidiary and sold by T-Mobile USA, may have lost all the personal data they stored on the phone, including contact numbers.
The companies say the data is "almost certainly" gone after a failure of servers operated by Microsoft wiped out the data. The companies said they hoped to update customers on recovery efforts Monday.
The phones have been troubled by data outages for more than a week. Some users attempted to restart their phones by removing the battery, which erases data on the device. Normally, the data is then restored from servers, but with the server data gone, the device is left empty.
Because of that, customers are being advised not to let the battery completely run down either.

Sidekick contacts, data gone, T-Mobile says by AP: Yahoo! Tech
 
Everything on my Sidekick 3 is still intact. Everyone (that I know with a Sidekick around here) lost everything because they removed the battery or did a hard reset on their Sidekicks.
 
KarissaMann05 said:
Foxrac - No, Shel90 is right; that's not an opinion. She told sidekick users what to get a new cell phone, that is what she told them what to do. I prefer sidekick, of course, I know sidekick is not prefect but I have my reasons. I can't afford Blackberry or iPhone or whatever it is. How dare is anybody tell me what I need or get without allowing me to make a decision as my own?

That is why I spoke up. I thanked Cheri for pointed out as well. For your info, I don't attack her. I reminded her...
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facepalm.jpg
 
Danger team should thought of have personal backup to computer that way anyone don't need to worry about doing the pain-ass to re-do the contact listing.
 
VamPyroX said:
Everything on my Sidekick 3 is still intact. Everyone (that I know with a Sidekick around here) lost everything because they removed the battery or did a hard reset on their Sidekicks.
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My hubby and brother did a hard reset on their SK's. I thought about doing it but never got around to it. Thank goodness I was too lazy to do it!
 
To my surprise, to my discover today that I still have every message I have saved on my Tmail account.

The inbox interface over at T-Mobile is still down, I hope this means good chance foir most stuff to come back soon.
 
VamPyroX said:
Everything on my Sidekick 3 is still intact. Everyone (that I know with a Sidekick around here) lost everything because they removed the battery or did a hard reset on their Sidekicks.
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It's all your fault for tell everyone to reboot it "reset"
:laugh2:
 
The Highlander said:
It's all your fault for tell everyone to reboot it "reset"
:laugh2:
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where did he say that? i don't recall of that.

I did reset my pager last weekend. It seems to me that i still have all the information on my sidekick. I know i wouldn't remove the sim. Last year or two, i did that and it took me to get the information back within 3 days. So I know not to touch or remove the sim.
 
Frisky Feline said:
where did he say that? i don't recall of that.

I did reset my pager last weekend. It seems to me that i still have all the information on my sidekick. I know i wouldn't remove the sim. Last year or two, i did that and it took me to get the information back within 3 days. So I know not to touch or remove the sim.
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AllDeaf.com - View Single Post - Tmobile fail?

Everything will come back eventually.

Sometimes, you have to reboot your Sidekick to make everything come back.
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Sidekick contacts, data gone, T-Mobile says

Phones had outages a week ago; customers told not to reset devices yet

NEW YORK - Owners of Sidekick phones may have lost all the personal information they put on the device, including contact numbers, because of a failure of servers that remotely stored the data.

The incident is a huge blow to the reputation of the Sidekick and is a reminder of the dangers of trusting a single provider to safeguard information.

The phones are made by a Microsoft Corp. subsidiary and sold by T-Mobile USA, which say many Sidekick owners' information is "almost certainly" gone. T-Mobile is offering customers a $20 refund. (Msnbc.com is a NBC Universal-Microsoft joint venture.)

Microsoft spokeswoman Debbie Anderson said Monday that there was a still a chance some of the lost user data could be restored from a backup system. Engineers were working at it in the Microsoft data center where the failure occurred, she said.

The phones were troubled by a data outage a week ago. Service was intermittent last week, and then users started reporting that their Sidekicks were wiped of all personal information.

"This has been a terrible experience," said Mary Boyle, of Silver Spring, Md. She lost more than 500 contacts, 100 pictures, a to-do list and dozens of Web site passwords. She also spent about eight hours on the phone with T-Mobile's technical support last week, trying to deal with the outage, she said.

On Saturday, T-Mobile and Microsoft warned customers not to restart their phones, remove the batteries or let the phones run down their batteries. Boyle said she did none of those things, yet her data disappeared anyway. She switched to a BlackBerry from Verizon Wireless on Monday, and said she had no intention of paying T-Mobile for quitting her contract early.

"As far as I'm concerned, they very much broke their contract with me before I broke theirs," she said.

Although the underlying data services were working again Monday, T-Mobile was still advising customers not to reset their phones. T-Mobile also was listing all Sidekicks as "out of stock" on its Web site Monday.

It's not clear how many customers have been affected, or how many Sidekicks are in operation, though the figure could approach 1 million, judging by T-Mobile's financial statements. The phone, which exists in several versions, has never been a huge seller since it launched in 2002, but it's very popular among young, urban customers, and it has had a certain cachet as a celebrity phone. Most famously, Paris Hilton used a Sidekick. Users have appreciated its large QWERTY keyboard for text messaging, a feature now copied by mainstream phones.

Microsoft bought Danger Inc., the maker of the Sidekick, last year in an attempt to revitalize its smartphone software portfolio.

The Sidekick's remote data storage feature was ahead of its time and served as a selling point for the device. It meant that if someone lost a phone, the contents could easily be downloaded to a new one. But the Sidekick didn't complement the remote storage with a convenient way to save all data locally. Most newer phones, such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone, are designed to back up a user's data when the device is connected to a PC.

Increasingly, consumers and businesses are relying on "cloud" services — in which e-mail, word processing and other applications store their data in remote server farms rather than on the machines where the work is performed. Providers such as Google Inc. back up the data, but as the Sidekick incident demonstrates, having a local backup can turn out to be essential.
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Sidekick contacts, data gone, T-Mobile says
 
Cheri said:
Why do people keep pushing us to get blackberry or I Phone just because our sidekick was temporary out of service? It's not the end of the world. My sidekick had been restored and I have a credit on my account for free t-mobile service for the whole month of October. I have no complains. ;)
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I agree!
 
Cheri said:
Why do people keep pushing us to get blackberry or I Phone just because our sidekick was temporary out of service? It's not the end of the world. My sidekick had been restored and I have a credit on my account for free t-mobile service for the whole month of October. I have no complains. ;)
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I wanted to add...because of that credit for a whole month, I get extra Xmas $$$!!!! I am happy because it was worth it since one week without service didnt kill me. Not having money for Xmas would have killed me! :lol:

The point is that sometimes technology fails us but it all depends on how we deal with it and I think you, I, and many others have a positive attitude about the whole tmobile thing. It is NOT the end of the world. :D
 
Cheri said:
Why do people keep pushing us to get blackberry or I Phone just because our sidekick was temporary out of service? It's not the end of the world. My sidekick had been restored and I have a credit on my account for free t-mobile service for the whole month of October. I have no complains. ;)
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Just take it in stride, they probably don't mean any harm just attempting to help us sidekick users. Personally, I can't afford a Blackberry at the moment, I did check into it on the tmobile.com some plans not bad. I can't think of a perfect cell phone, sure, each phone has its set backs. In the meantime, still using my good old sidekick3 :)
 
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