PLEASE HELP!! All contacts in Windows Mail have been accidentally deleted.

My Windows Contacts folder has been emptied. The files are not in the recycle bin. Below is an explanation of what I was doing. Please read it all the way through. Please keep in mind that I reference both Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail. I know the difference and I've been specific in the paragraph below. I think most people were reading the first line and leaving with the idea that they can't help. That would explain 166 views and not a single reply. My computer runs Windows Vista and I use Windows Mail. My father's computer is not Vista so he's switching to Windows Live Mail (WLM). I think that's confusing people when they read the next paragraph.

I was attempting to help my father figure out how to import his contacts from Seamonkey to Windows Live Mail. He's 1300 miles away. I opened SeaMonkey Mail to get to its address book and found not only his addresses (he uses it when he visits), but my contacts from Windows Mail (NOT WLM). I deleted one of my own email groups in SeaMonkey and was still able to see it in Windows Mail, so I figured I was only deleting an imported listing from SeaMonkey and proceeded to delete the rest of my contacts. When I was done, I was still able to see my Contacts in Windows Mail. After I was done I closed SeaMonkey but left Windows Mail open.

Several hours later, I went to forward an email and found every single one of my contacts is gone. I do not have this information to re-enter it. Is there a backup of the contact list? Is there a way to undelete the contacts either from within Windows Mail or Seamonkey?

Please, please, please help me!

I don't use Windows mail but I will try to help anyway
I don't know if Windows mail is an online setup like G-mail or all kept on your computer.
What I would do is download Shadow Explorer (a free program) This lets you look through your system restore points and recover any files from them.
Unless you changed the default system restore settings one will be made each time you start Vista.

ShadowExplorer.com - About

Have you tried System Restore? Other than that do you have any backups anywhere? If not then DATA Recovery services may be able to retrieve some deleted files if they haven't yet been overwritten, but those services tend to be expensive.
There are a number of data recovery software companies offering free trials out there, so I would do a Google search for those if you need them.

I didn't think System Restore would work, but I've been wrong before so I tried it. I wasn't wrong.

I've found most of the contact files using an undelete program, but more than half of those had already been overwritten. At least I've got those names so I can ask them for the information I lost. There are several people for which I had contact files, but there is no hint of the files anywhere. People I know I entered, are missing completely. Unfortunately, that means that it is likely that there are many whose contact info is completely gone. I have been posting in another thread looking for help with making backups and images and constructing a game plan, but I have yet to do anything.

Currently, I'm trying another data recovery program that finds lost and deleted partitions and shows me the files inside. I have yet to find a single contact file though. It is a long and arduous process. I have lost way too much sleep and time. I had done a crude back up of some files onto an external hard drive when I was having drive problems in the computer, but that external drive has since lost all the backups. I'm pretty sure I reformatted it so I don't hold much hope of finding the files there. After this, I'll be going through each and every one of my emails to harvest info as well as my cellphone.

I was hoping someone knew of a hidden or little thought of process that would hold this information either in Windows or SeaMonkey. It looks like I'm SOL.

Shadow Explorer is only a way for Vista users to see individual files held in system restore.
User data is usually in there if you haven't done a system clean up with the more options item checked
where you are given the option to delete old restore points.

ilikefree said:

Shadow Explorer is only a way for Vista users to see individual files held in system restore.
User data is usually in there if you haven't done a system clean up with the more options item checked
where you are given the option to delete old restore points.

Click to expand...

I've always liked free too. ilikefree, I have a question for you. If I already tried a system restore and the contacts did not come back, wouldn't it be a waste of effort to download this, install it, and see the files that didn't restore anyway? I mean, I would think that MS would have included contacts in the System Restore because of their importance to everyone. That being said, the restore failed. Should I bother?

I was thinking the restore didn't run properly not that it didn't have the files you needed.
If it did run as expected then there would be no use searching through them.

It ran properly. I've resigned myself to the fact that all of it is lost. I'm rebuilding my address book one name at a time. I'm combing through old emails and facebook friends to get the information I need for the corrupted contacts. Some I will ask for the info, and some will have to be deleted. With as much space that is used on my C: drive, every time the page file writes to the drive lessens the odds of finding a good record. Unfortunately, I'm also still trying to help my Dad migrate his address book from SeaMonkey to WLM. The way fields in the two program's contact records don't have the same names means that migration may be a name by name edit in an Excel spreadsheet.

Thanks everybody for your help. I'd mark this as solved, but it really isn't solved. There just isn't a solution.

That's too bad. Make a backup of your Windows Contacts once you've got them sorted out.

How do I back up only the contacts folder? Would simply making a copy of my Contacts folder on a thumb drive enough?

There 2 ways. Open WM and click File > Export > Windows Contacts or, if you use a backup programme, have it pick your personal libraries including the Contacts folder.

Yes save it as a .csv as it will be easier to import it to another program if you ever change.