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ADVANCE Perspective: HIT

Data Disruption Hits Sidekicks

Published October 12, 2009 2:39 PM by Frank Irving
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According to a statement posted on its company Web site on Oct. 10, T-Mobile acknowledged that users lost information stored on the Sidekick device as a result of a server failure at data services provider Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft.

T-Mobile's statement explained, "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..."

The statement continued, "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."

The company directed customers to a Sidekick Contacts FAQ page.

Important: T-Mobile advised 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."

If you've been affected by the Sidekick data loss, please share your comments below.

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Update: The Danger/Microsoft team reported on Oct. 20 that it has completed its latest round of tests.

"We are now ready to make the first phase of the content-restoration process available to you, starting with personal contacts," said a pop-up statement on the Sidekick Web site.

"This data restoration effort is only necessary for the minority of customers who lost data from their Sidekick devices," the statement noted.

Microsoft/Danger instructed customers to log on to the My T-Mobile Web site to access a recovery tool to restore contacts.

"This tool will enable you to view the contacts you had on your device as of October 2. 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 2, 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," the statement said.

The next phase in the restoration process will target restoration of photographs, notes, to-do lists, marketplace data and high scores.

Frank Irving, , Editor ADVANCE for Health Information Executives October 20, 2009 6:16 PM
King of Prussia PA

Update: Microsoft reported on Oct. 15 that it has "recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage."

The company said the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up.

"We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data," wrote Roz Ho, VP of Premium Mobile Experiences for Microsoft, in an open letter to T-Mobile Sidekick customers.

Ho noted, "If your Sidekick account was among those affected, please continue to log into the T-Mobile Sidekick forum at http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick for the latest updates about when data restoration will begin, and any steps you may need to take."
Frank Irving, , Editor ADVANCE for Health Information Executives October 15, 2009 5:22 PM
King of Prussia PA

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