Sorry for the double post, but no bites over in the general WM OS forum, so I'm hoping someone here might know...


I am looking for the contact data files in WM 6.1 (in other words, the outlook data files that are probably hidden).

Backstory: The resident idiot here (ME) neglected to sync his phone and back things up for, oh, about 3 months. (yes, you know what comes next, and I fully deserve it!).

The phone has now stopped working... Specifically, the Phone application, contacts application, and calendar application. The rest of WM is working fine, except that there is something causing it to run sluggish. AND the phone will not sync. It will connect, but it refuses to sync. Nothing was done to cause this failure, other than waking up one morning.

SOMETHING is corrupted, but I don't think its the actual data file (logic for that is below), SO before I hit the hard reset.... I thought I might try to back it up manually..... what do I have to lose?

A few more specifics:
1. Samsung i770 running WM 6.1 (but more of a WM specific issue than a i770 issue, so its posted in this forum)
2. When the phone booted for the first 20 or so times after the problem appeared, an error message would across the screen as soon as the desktop was loaded, but far too fast to make out any of the words.
3. Trying to load contacts, calendar, or the phone application produces absolutely no result. No error message, to hung process, nothing.
4. The messaging application works fine, BUT any attempt to load a contact from within fails. Again, no error message, just... nothing happens, it's like you never clicked it....
5. The radio antenna in the top bar says that it has no service.
6. NOW the error message is no longer flashing by the screen when you boot the phone, but all other symptoms remain.
7. Despite the fact that the radio icon and status indicator claims there is no signal, I can send and receive text messages (I just have to enter the number manually).
8. Once, very recently, without doing anything, an error message appeared and STAYED on the screen. Shape of the text looks about right for the message that previously has been flashing by on the screen, I think they are one in the same.
"Shortcut Target"
"error opening the shortcut or locating the target filename."

ANY THOUGHTS? Primarily I'm looking for the contacts data file (I don't care about the calendar) to back it up before I hard reset the phone.... BUT if anyone has any ideas about a cause or temporary fix to the problems, I'm all ears!!!!!!

__________________
-Francis
Samsung i770 Saga | Verizon Wireless | U.S.A.
Abandoning in favor of a Droid....

you need to load one of the alternate file exploreres and enable viewing hidden/system files

I beleive it's something.vol - might actually be PIM.vol but it's a big file in the root or close to the root (maybe documents) and will be obvious once you can see hidden files.

it might actually have all your pim data.

Found it, got the file copied (there were actual two different versions of it, slightly different file sizes).... Still trying to find out if I can just copy it into the reloaded phone and have my contacts appear like magic, or wether I've got more work to do.

__________________
-Francis
Samsung i770 Saga | Verizon Wireless | U.S.A.
Abandoning in favor of a Droid....

anyt luck? I *THINK* it should just copy over and you would be set, but I never tried myself.

from what I'm reading over at xda, it looks like it will work. Only issue arises occasionally when you're moving between OS versions, which I am not.

I'll play with it more tonight, and *probably* take the plunge to hard reset, though I will TRY to replace poutlook.exe first, since that is a non-destructive measure that I can undo

__________________
-Francis
Samsung i770 Saga | Verizon Wireless | U.S.A.
Abandoning in favor of a Droid....

Uh oh.... looking more and more like its the PIM.VOL file itself (the outlook contact/calendar db file) that is boinked.....

My phone had two copies of PIM.VOL - one in the root where most are (2.4mb), and another in \application data\ (2.5mb). Kind of strange. Either way, I copied both off the phone.

I successfully got the Microsoft Device Emulator working on my computer and running a nice clean version of WM 6.1 to test and play around with. YAY! now I can screw things up to my hearts content and just hit reset

Loaded in the first PIM.VOL... testbed phone immediately started doing most of the same things my phone was doing. contacts would not open, calendar would not open, etc.... Tried PIM Backup 2.8 from over at xda, no go, same problems.

Loaded in the second PIM.VOL and soft reset. Noticed that the today plugin was now displaying my next appointment and telling me I had tasks due! YES!!! I clicked on contacts....... BOOOOOOM! back to the same problems. Suddenly the calendar and everything else stop working again.

Hard flash the fake device back to a virgin state. Loaded up the second PIM.VOL file, and IMMEDIATELY loaded up PIM Backup without touching anything else. I'll summarize the results.

Successfully connected to outlook (always failed this before)
106 appointments to be retrieved
106 appointments successfully retrieved
323 contacts to be retrieved.
5 contacts successfully retrieved.
failed to backup tasks.

Tried a few more times with JUST the contacts, same results, 5/323. Interestingly enough, I can read the tasks db just fine, provided that I don't try the contacts first. The instant I try to do anything that would access the contacts information, the entire DB becomes corrupted and unreadable.

I even tried using PocketBreeze, just to change up what program accessed the DB, but the fundamental truth is that ALL the programs use the POOM access protocol through pocket outlook, there are few ways of of avoiding going through it to get to the DB. Not surprisingly, the results were the same with PcketBreeze. Tasks and appointments were available until the moment I flipped to the contact tab.... then suddenly tasks and appointments were no longer available!

The results seem to speak for themselves, I'm pretty screwed when it comes to getting my contacts retrieved, unless someone happens to have one hell of a brilliant idea......

__________________
-Francis
Samsung i770 Saga | Verizon Wireless | U.S.A.
Abandoning in favor of a Droid....