[premordial]

12 hours ago I switched from a Sprint Pre to a Verizon Pre Plus. Before doing so I did a complete file by file copy of everything on my Sprint Pre and put it into a folder on my PC desktop. I also did a manual OTA backup of my Pre.
I registered the new Verizon PrePlus with the same email address/login as the old account.
After spending hours waiting for set up, authentication, version updating, copying and pasting all of my backed-up files from the desktop, etc., the WebOS calendar and WebOS "notes" appear on the new device as expected.

However, I am now in complete panic mode at what has apparently happened:

14 years of palm OS contacts, calendar, tasks, and memos I've been using daily/hourly until a few hours ago via classic ARE GONE!!!! (I'm trying to remain calm with the knowledge that those bytes of information must still be somewhere in my now disabled Sprint Pre).

1 year of SMS messages gone!

1 year of call history gone!

All the hundreds of Pre photos are gone.

The timing of this loss couldn't be worse as I need my Classic datebook files and my Classic Memos files to complete some financial reports due within 48 hours.

I've been up all night trying to figure out what to do. I need to stop and get a little sleep, but when I come back and check this thread in a couple hours I will pay $100 today via paypal to the first person who successfully restores/recovers my Classic (palmOS) data. This "first person" will be determined by when they posted the necessary instructions/answers/suggestions to recover my data.

In the spirit of having this thread benefit others with the same problem, and to encourage participation, I'm willing to open it up to a vote if it looks like there could be more than one winner.

Thanks in advance. I'll be surprised if I wake up at all. I think this whole experience is giving me a heart attack.

[fsuphi1490]

The Classic info is probably stores on the USB partition of the phone. You said you backed up the USB side of the phone to your computer. Look in the files on the computer for the directory Classic stores it's files. If you loaded the USB side then installed Classic after it may have erased the info and replaced with a clean version of Classic.

as regards the cloud, sometimes it doesn't fully install try a reboot. If that doesn't work do an erase and start again. I had several things missing on my first login during my last switch.

Call history and sms are gone, unless you used save/restore.

These are just suggestions from my experiences. I have had 10 Sprint Pre's over the last year, so I have reloaded severa times. It is much easier with save/restore now. Best of luck.

[prince201]

Happened to me before. If fsuphi1490's suggestion doesn't work, try a data recovery program. I used a program called eDATA Unerase and it worked!

[GuyFromNam]

I will send hardbeatz a PM. He works for Palm and may be able to help.
http://forums.precentral.net/members/hardbeatz.html

[Mediademics]

Call history and sms are gone, unless you used save/restore.

Looking at his sign up date and post count I am guessing he has not dabbled with homebrew, however, I may be wrong.

That is a complete bummer losing that much information. Hopefully, the fine members of this community will be able to help him get it back. Best of luck.

[premordial]

Thanks all, and no, I haven't homebrewed or anything.
Trying suggestions now.

[dunivan]

it should be in the classic folder of the usb partition I would think

[neit_jnf]

did you ever hotsync with classic? if you did all your data is in your pc, hotsync the new pre or find the palm folder in your pc and look for the archived files

(previous palm iiixe, V, Tungsten, 700p, 755p, centro and now pre user)

[premordial]

Well, I've lost almost 24 hours on this, including a lot of wasted time with palm level 1 and 2, and still don't have this resolved.
Finally forced my way to level 3 and have a hopeful solution which I'm working on right now.
I'll post later how this goes.

[premordial]

Oh, and neit_jnf, no, I was never able to hotsync with MotionApps Classic. Followed the video, called them, searched the forums, etc.--just never could hotsync with bluetooth or wifi.

[mamouton]

premordial I hotsync all the time with classic but I did notice that I needed to open the port on my router for hotsync to see the pre. pm if you want further assistance with hotsyncing classic via wifi or evdo.

[Misaki Ki]

Try this?

Not sure if it'll be a perfect transfer, but it's worth a try. You'll have to be able to access the file from your phone, WebOS Quick Install being the easiest. Of course, if the file is long gone. It's long gone. I just think it's worth a check, at the very least.

I'm probably wasting your time though, since I don't know how a deactivated Pre functions like, and that didn't exactly refer to PalmOS. :X

This does, but might not be what you're looking for.

[neit_jnf]

ok then, did you use to hotsync your previous palm device? maybe there's an older archived file in your pc, you can recover that. It's not the best remedy but better than nothing...

Did you ever use Palm's data transfer program to send all your Palm Desktop data over to google? You could try that.

[BdotR]

Doing a Partial Erase might help. If you go to Device Info, then to Reset Options and Press "Erase Apps and Data" it'll do a partial erase and when it restarts you can re enter your Palm Profile. That's happened to me before when I restored and not everything that I backed up was restored. As for the texts, you'll need to get the .db3 file from your Sprint Pre and transfer it over to your Plus. There are threads about this, but beware. Porting over your old .db3 to you new Plus could make a couple of things glitchy.

[bluewanders]

The palm profile backup does not save text messages, memos, tasks etc... there are home brew solutions to that... but you werent using them to begin with.

Text messages are stored in a database called: PalmDatabase.db3 and is located at /var/luna/data/dbdata/ on your phone... this database also holds a few other things as well... you can use linux or webos quick install to pull that file from your old phone and put it in your new phone (make sure to back up the database from the new phone) its an option in webos quick install called get/send file...

this will take care of most of your webOS stuff you lost...

As far as the palmOS stuff... we dont know what programs you are using specifically... if they didnt save their files in the media drive accesible through usb connection then they will most likely save their files here: /media/cryptofs/apps/usr/palm/applications/ each folder within that directory represents a non native app you have installed... once again the easiest way to navigate this is by connecting into your phone via linux... or installing a program on your phone called terminal, which gives you shell access... alteratively you can explore your phone and copy files from these other areas to your media drive for usb retrieval via a fantastic homebrew app called Internalz...

This is a lot of absorb... and getting it all set up isnt as easy as it looks... but this is everything you need.

A caveat: be warned... transferring your old database to your new phone will make you lose everything youve received on your new phone so far (text messages and such) there is no way to merge them as yet.

[premordial]

Still not resolved. The last 54 hours since I tried to upgrade to a preplus have been pretty much a nightmare. Yes, I've tried a partial erase to no avail. I can't believe HOW LITTLE the level 3 tech specialists at sprint, verizon, and palm know about an issue like this.
Since all else has failed, I've got a couple geeks over at my house right now (it's 1:30am) and they're trying to get into my device using dev mode and konami code via usb.
I just heard them cheer about something so I'll be logging off of here to see what they're up to....

[premordial]

Well, thanks to crazedgamer and flintstone for recovering my palmOS files using their crazy idea. You deserved the reward--that was a lot of hours. Unfortunately, we were all too sleepy this morning at 3 to realize that recovering the files was apparently only the beginning.

I was told by tech support that I could just copy and paste the files into the installer folder of webOS. Noh, don't work. So tonight I'm starting day 4 unable to see/access/utilize/manage the data I need. I tried calling Motion Apps to find out what needs to be done with my pdb files to make them populate the classic app I bought from them. Imagine my surprise when I found they close at 4p and they don't have online tech support.

The deadline for my project came and went. I simply had to make do with what paper documentation I could find, punt and submit. Ugly. I'd like to know what the hell the designers of this thing were thinking to not have a plug and play backup of anything and everything on the device? I'm pretty freaking angry right now.

Over the years I've had devices stolen, run over, lost, and even permanently brick for no apparent reason, and I've never had to stress like this. Before the false security of this cloud thing, I would always plug my devices in to charge and do a mirror backup almost every night, alternating flash card backups at home and in my car. When something happened to my device I'd just buy a new one on the way to work or whatever, slide in one of my two backup cards, and literally within 5 or 6 minutes I'd have a totally working replacement without skipping a beat.

The cloud sounded great until this. Now I'm discovering the illogical, reverse-meanings of the palm world: Universal search that isn't, backup that doesn't, installation folders that don't, an sms and call history that are history if you change devices, a calendar that ain't (try opening and reading from your PRE the notes you wrote into a google calendar entry 4 months ago: not there!), contacts that allow virtually unlimited note taking--as long as you never have to search for any notes you've written (because 'universal search' can't search in notes), uh, need I go on?

I really didn't mean to turn this into a rant, but, I'm angry and could actually lose a job over this. Since most everyone at work has heard about what happened, it makes Palm look really bad because several hundred people now get to brag to each other about how easily their device backs up all their stuff.

Hopefully MA has an answer tomorrow or I may end up checking into some new palmOS emulator that supposedly came out last month for the iPhone.

[jbg7474]

I know you're really aggravated right now, but I think a better strategy going forward is to embrace the cloud whole-heartedly. In other words, get your data out of pdb files that are only useful in an old OS that no one is updating and into Google or Yahoo or some other cloud provider. Had this been done when you switched to the Pre, you would be experiencing a lot less stress right now.

Shame on Palm for not making it clear to customers that Classic data is not normally backed up in the Palm Profile.

Comprehensive backup solutions are still in work (and in homebrew status) for webOS, but there has been a lot of progress.

[premordial]

Still no answer from Motion Apps. My problem originates from my complete transfer, via usb, of the contents of my sprint pre before "upgrading" to a verizon pre+.
I carefully copied each file taken from the webOS 'datamgr' folder and pasted into the classic install folder on the new pre+.
Why is the data not appearing in my classic app? What step(s) am I missing?

[gapost]

I think the answer is to somehow re-activate your Sprint pre. There are two methods to activate your phone without a service:

http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pr...ml#post2111882

Or an easier one that should be good for you:

Developing on an Unactivated Device - Palm Developer Center

Once you get it going, you might be able to get Classic open and recognize the data on USB.

If you ever get your data out, then you should use one of the new apps that is designed for WebOS like missingsync or companionlink or pocketmirror.

Another thought is that sometimes there are hidden files. When you copied, did you set Windows to see all the files in the folder, including the hidden ones?