Microsoft Begins Restoring Sidekick Data

Microsoft says that after several weeks of effort to recover data from backup, it's ready to begin restoring Sidekick user data, beginning with personal contacts.

"This data restoration effort is only necessary for the minority of customers who lost data from their Sidekick devices," said this morning's announcement. "Beginning today, log into the My T-Mobile website, where there will be a recovery tool to restore contacts you may have lost during the recent service outage. This tool will enable you to view the contacts you had on your device as of October 1. With a few clicks and a confirmation, you will be able to restore these contacts to your Sidekick. If you have recreated some of the same contacts on your Sidekick since October 1, you can choose to keep both sets of contacts, merge them, or just keep the set of contacts now on your device. You may also edit any partial or complete duplicates on your Sidekick after restoration."

Microsoft is continuing the effort to restore Didekick users' photographs, notes, to-do lists, marketplace data and high scores.

On Oct. 10, T-Mobile told users of its popular Sidekick mobile that all of their data had been lost due to a server failure at Microsoft’s Danger subsidiary. T-Mobile advised Sidekick users not to reset their device or let the battery drain completely, which would result in a loss of the data on their device.

The problems for Sidekick users began early this month, when users began experiencing trouble connecting to the servers that store their contacts. T-Mobile and Microsoft initially expressed optimism that they would be able to restore service as soon as Oct. 4.