Help with address book sync

[cleung]

My MBP's hard drive died last week. Just before it died, data started getting corrupted and all my phone numbers (not contact names) were wiped from my address book on my computer. I had no idea that was happening as I seldom use the address book on my computer. However, everything is automatically set to sync with Mobileme and subsequently to my iphone. When I used my phone, I noticed all my phone numbers were gone and the same is true on the Mobileme server. The one saving grace is that I backup my computer religiously and I have all the information on my external drive. I'm waiting for Apple to fix the hard drive and should get it back tomorrow. However, I'm afraid that if I reload all my files from my external drive and it gets synced to Mobileme again, my address book on my external drive will be considered "old" and my "new" address book on the server with no phone numbers will replace all the numbers I have on my backup. How do I replace the numberless address book on my iphone and mobileme server with what's on my external hard drive?

 

[Macsterguy]

The first thing I would do is...

The first thing I would do is turn off all internet connection on the laptop (wifi etc.) when you first start it up. Check to make sure your backup contacts are in order before allowing MobileMe to sync! If they are, force sync to the cloud.

 

[cleung]

Thanks so much for the info. I already thought about turning off all internet connection as I'm terrified that the info on the Me cloud will then be pushed onto my backup drive. How do I force sync to the cloud? Is there an option once I get into Systems Preference? I just went to my me.com on the web and don't see where I can do that. Thanks again for your help!

 

[swiftaw]

1. Turn off internet connection on Macbook
2. Restore address book from backup
3. Go to system preferences->MobileMe->Sync->Advanced
4. Select Reset Sync Data
5. Select Replace All Sync Info on MobileMe with sync info from this computer