My Ipad Calender info was erased - crisis for business - please help

[kirsten]

Hello,

I am frantic and praying someone can help me. I own a very successful business that has hourly appointments in my ipad calender only 7 days a week.

I know I should have backed it up earlier - and today I tried to do that for the first time.

Plugged it in and synced it.

My calender is VITAL to my business and ability to bill insurance etc. therefore, i needed to also sync that, so I enrolled in mobileme today. Synched that too.

Somewhere along the line - even though everything else is fine and synched, my calender was erased. Spoken to apple and mobileme, no help. Calender is not on mobile me or ipad. THOUSANDS of clients deleted.

I dont care about the synch at this point, just need it back...... I will hand transcribe everyone into paper calender for back up now.

I hope somone can help me, recover vital info.

Thanks so much, and I will try anything.....nothing can be worse then this.

 

[twerppoet]

UPDATE 2: Go ahead and try it. I checked and backups are indeed supposed to include calendars.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4079



UPDATE: Sorry, I thought about this some more, and while you might try it, it is very unlikely to work. If memory serves (belatedly) calendar info is not one of the things that get saved in a backup. I'm off to check to be certain, but I wanted to put this here first, and try to catch you before you waste a bunch of time.

Be Back with another update soon.

You've synced it precisely once?

If so there might be a way. Each sync starts with a backup, so any calendar syncing would have happened after you backed up the iPad. If you've synced it since the data went away, then it's gone. Either way, try this. It doesn't sound like you've got much to lose.

On the computer (before connecting the iPad) go into iTunes, Preferences, and the Devices tab. You'll want to check the box that says it will prevent auto-syncing.

Now connect your iPad and select it from the Devices list on the left. Right click on the iPad and choose Restore from Backup (or something like that). Do not use the Restore on the Summary Page. That will remove everything from the iPad.

When it is over, and it will probably take quite a while, check to see if your Calendar is back. If not, you're out of luck unless someone else has a bright idea.

If the calendar is there (Do Not Sync Yet) It's a fail safe incase something goes wrong in the next step.

Your MobileMe account under Settings >> Mail, Contacts, Calendars is probably gone. You'll want to add it again. Do so, but keep a sharp eye out for notifications on what to do with the calendar. Make sure you choose either the keep or merge options. I forget which. You definitely do not want to delete or replace anything.

If your MobileMe account is still there, then turn the calendar off, but choose to keep the appointments. Turn it back on and choose the Merge, or keep calendar, or whatever. Just don't let it delete.

I'm suggesting this to make sure the MobileMe account is synced and doesn't throw a surprise hissy fit later because it doesn't know about the restored calendar.

Once you can see the calendar (assuming you've been that lucky) check on me.com to make sure it ended up there too.

Before you sync, go into the Info tab for you sync settings on he computer. The iPad must be connected. Make sure that the calendar syncing is NOT selected. From now on you'll keep your backed up calendar in the MobileMe cloud, not on the computer. It was probably an accidental syncing to the computer (where you didn't have the calendar to sync with) that deleted the calendar from the iPad.

Disclaimer: I have not way of knowing for sure this will work. It is what I would try. Understand you may (probably will) lose other settings and content you've added since the sync. It should not effect the media (music, movies, books) stored in iTunes or their syncing. But that risk is there, especially if you've got content that is on the iPad but not in iTunes on the computer.

Usually I'd recommend doing a Transfer Purchases before trying the restore. And you should probably do that, but if you want to be extra cautious and don't care about the possible lose of some media on the iPad (iTunes on the computer is not at risk), skip it as one very minor risk you don't have to take.