Microsoft Confirm Sidekick Data Recovery "We Have Recovered Most, if Not All, Customer Data", Says MS

A couple of days ago we reported that compensation was potentially on
the cards for T-Mobile Sidekick users who, in T-Mobile s words, �have
experienced a significant and permanent loss of personal content should
it prove that MS/Danger could not retrieve lost data. But now if you
happen to own a Sidekick and have been hit by data loss, there s good
news as, according to Microsoft, they have already managed to recover
�most, if not all of the lost data whilst additionally claiming that,
far from hitting the majority of Sidekick users, as was initially
thought, the data loss issues actually only �affected a minority of
Sidekick users .
Here s Microsoft s decidedly reassuring official statement on the
matter, from none other than MS s Corporate Vice President, Premium
Mobile Experiences:

Microsoft Confirms Data Recovery for Sidekick Users

Data Restoration to Begin as Soon as Possible for Affected Customers

Dear T-Mobile Sidekick customers,

On behalf of Microsoft, I want to apologize for the recent problems with
the Sidekick service and give you an update on the steps we have taken
to resolve these problems.

We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all,
customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by
the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users personal data as
soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have
validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to
work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including
calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.

We now believe that data loss affected a minority of Sidekick users. If
your Sidekick account was among those affected, please continue to log
into these forums for the latest updates about when data restoration
will begin, and any steps you may need to take. We will work with
T-Mobile to post the next update on data restoration timing no later
than Saturday.

We have determined that 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.

We will continue working closely with T-Mobile to restore user data as
quickly as possible. We are eager to deliver the level of reliable
service that our incredibly loyal customers have become accustomed to,
and we are taking immediate steps to help ensure this does not happen
again. Specifically, we have made changes to improve the overall
stability of the Sidekick Service and initiated a more resilient backup
process to ensure that the integrity of our database backups is maintained.

Once again, we apologize for this situation and the inconvenience that
it has created. Please know that we are working all-out to resolve this
situation and restore the reliability of the service.

Sincerely,

Roz Ho

Corporate Vice President

Premium Mobile Experiences, Microsoft Corporation