T-Mobile Looses Sidekick Data

Over the past weekend T-Mobile has confirmed that data originally lost two weeks ago is indeed gone for good. T-Mobile issues the following statement via their customer forums;

T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption.

We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger's latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device - such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos - that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. 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. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips in our Sidekick Contacts FAQ. We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.

In addition, we plan to communicate with you on Monday (Oct. 12) the status of the remaining issues caused by the service disruption, including the data recovery efforts and the Download Catalog restoration which we are continuing to resolve. We also will communicate any additional tips or suggestions that may help in restoring your content.

We recognize the magnitude of this inconvenience. Our primary efforts have been focused on restoring our customers' personal content. We also are considering additional measures for those of you who have lost your content to help reinforce how valuable you are as a T-Mobile customer.

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.

Once again, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger regret any and all inconvenience this matter has caused.

According to reports the data loss came as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. T-Mobile along with Danger are still looking for a way to recover user information but the above statement looks pretty hopeless. Customer have reported that it appears as though servers are still on the fritz and the companies are warning all Sidekick owners not just those that have experienced issues not to let their devices power down because anything that's still on there will be lost the next time the device is turned on.

T-Mobile has promised more details and a further report will be released later on Monday to give everyone a status update on the recovery efforts, but at this point, it's not looking good at all.

According to PC Magazine T-Mobile had already begun promising customers who had been hit by the outage a month of free data service. A quote from a T-Mobile spokesperson also implied that more compensation would be coming soon: "We also are considering additional measures for those of you who have lost your content to help reinforce how valuable you are as a T-Mobile customer," the company said.

**Update**

NetworkWorld is reporting that some users have had their data restored. According to the report an undetermined amount of users have been posting response to the T-Mobile customer forums reporting that their data has been restored.

"I was just on my phone and when I got off my phone all my contacts returned," wrote tommyd2107 this morning. "I do not know if this will last for long but the [sight] of my contacts returning is encouraging." He had begun last night manually importing his contact data into his Sidekick. "[T]hen today when I went out on my phone and after I hung up the rest of my contacts came back."

In one response, Dariahna wrote, "The same thing happened to me...I shut my phone off several times without removing the battery...voila! My contacts returned!" Another frustrated but relieved user, Generalblue, reported his phone had frozen completely. He took out the Sidekick’s battery and replaced it (a common step for users in restarting their phone). "Once my phone was on about 5 minutes later I checked my address book for some reason and they were all there. I saved all my contacts to my simcard."