The Danger / Microsoft team is continuing to work around the clock on the data restoration process. We apologise that this is taking so long, but we want to make sure we are doing everything possible to maintain the integrity of your data.

We continue to make steady progress, and we hope to be able to begin restoring personal contacts for affected users this week, with the remainder of the content (photographs, notes, to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores) shortly thereafter.

This data restoration effort is only necessary for customers who lost data from their Sidekick devices. We appreciate your ongoing patience.

So, in a nutshell, if your data has not been recovered soooooo sooooorry. [Microsoft]

The statement goes on to say they will “work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible”.

The data loss was apparently caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. I’m not sure if that means sabotage or not.

Meanwhile, we now hear that a number of pissed off users have filed lawsuits. Maybe this isn’t the end to this after all. [T-Mobile]

Dear T-Mobile Sidekick customers,
On behalf of Microsoft, I want to apologise 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 apologise 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

An anonymous tipster with seemingly extensive knowledge about the Danger/Pink team has this to say to Apple Insider as to what caused the massive data outage:

…someone with access to the servers at the datacenter must have inserted a time bomb to wipe out not just all of the data, but also all of the backup tapes, and finally, I suspect, reformatting the server hard drives so that the service itself could not be restarted with a simple reboot (and to erase any traces of the time bomb itself)… If this was an ordinary sort of failure, the service would have come back within a day, so once again, all signs point to sabotage.

After all the reports we’ve been hearing about the troubled state of the Danger/Pink team, it’s certainly plausible that there are more than a few disgruntled employees who could cause such a catastrophic failure. Whether or not anyone would is another question, but this whole thing is so waaaay out of the ordinary, I’m willing to believe it. [Apple Insider via Fast Company]

What’s interesting is that the three posters all have one thing in common: they reset their phones. That goes against T-Mobile’s official warning: “During this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power.”

Unfortunately, some users still tried what the Sidekick users below did, and now their phones won’t even turn on.

Tommyd2107 says:

I turned off my phone a couple times over the course of the outage. Last night I began manually importing all my numbers back into my phone, then today when I went out on my phone and after I hung up… all 396 of my contacts returned.

Generalblue says:

Got my contacts back too! My phone froze up on me and since I have already lost everything anyways, I just took the battery out and put it back in. Once my phone was on about 5 minutes later I checked my address book for some reason and they were all there. I saved all my contacts to my SIM card.

Dariahna says:

The same thing happened to me…I shut my phone off several times without removing the battery…voile’! My contacts returned!

At that point, a T-Mobile rep jumped into the conversation: “We would like to collect some examples of this.” I bet they would. Meanwhile, the Sidekick LX is labelled “temporarily out of stock” over at T-Mobile. [T-Mobile Forums and InfoWorld]

T-Mo seems really sorry about this. Of course, they did lose a ton of customer data that’s unlikely to be found, but at least they’re properly apologetic. The full statement:

T-MOBILE STATUS UPDATE ON SIDEKICK DATA DISRUPTION, MON., OCT. 12

Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

We are thankful for your continued patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on preserving platform stability and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers. We have made significant progress this past weekend, restoring services to virtually every customer. Microsoft/Danger has teams of experts in place who are working around-the-clock to ensure this stability is maintained.

Regarding those of you who have lost personal content, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger continue to do all we can to recover and return any lost information. Recent efforts indicate the prospects of recovering some lost content may now be possible. We will continue to keep you updated on this front; we know how important this is to you.

In the event certain customers have experienced a significant and permanent loss of personal content, T-Mobile will be sending these customers a $US100 customer appreciation card. This will be in addition to the free month of data service that already went to Sidekick data customers. This card can be used towards T-Mobile products and services, or a customer’s T-Mobile bill. For those who fall into this category, details will be sent out in the next 14 days – there is no action needed on the part of these customers. We however remain hopeful that for the majority of our customers, personal content can be recovered.

Sidekick customers can continue to visit T-Mobile Sidekick Forums (http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick) on a regular basis to access the latest updates, as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption. The Forums also offers tips and suggestions for rebuilding content on your device.

Channelweb’s tipster sounds similar to the tipster last week that talked to MobileCrunch about management ineptitude and lousy business choices. To summarise, Roz Ho, Microsoft’s “head of mobile experiences”, seems to be making so many bad choices that naming the project after Pink, the angry singer, seems like one of her best choices.

According to Channelweb, the Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) team has caused, either by layoffs or by pissing them off, a large chunk of the Danger team to leave Microsoft. Danger is the team that actually built the Sidekick, and Roz Ho was siphoning off their resources into the Pink camp in order to make sure the latter could survive. By doing so, it seems like she’s killed off both groups, which might be why Microsoft keeps denying that they’re going to make phone hardware.

The bottom line is that massive data outages might be just the kind of early warning users need to abandon the Sidekick and get on another device before it’s out of your hands. [CRN]

An exasperated tipster who just spent some quality time across the phone from an equally exasperated T-Mobile rep told us what he was offered:

• I’m released from the contract if I want (Yeesh, of course I better be. I can’t believe I had to ask).
• I can get a G1 for $US129 (not sure if that’s the normal contract renewal pricing or not; doesn’t sound like a great deal to me).
• They also suggested Blackberries etc, but I didn’t get the pricing (since those are design disasters compared to SK or iPhone).

So to break it down, your options are to accept about $US20 off a G1, which you, an avid Sidekick user, probably didn’t want anyway, move onto a BlackBerry, or to leave. Sidekick users are a dedicated bunch—there’s a good chance they came to T-Mobile just to use a particular handset—so I wouldn’t be surprised if people take them up on the offer.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some kind of official announcement from T-Mobile regarding how they plan on dealing with their no doubt angry mass of Sidekick subscribers, but it’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out: Remember, even though these people all bought their phones and service from T-Mo, the actual data loss is Danger’s (read: Microsoft’s) fault. It’s already clear that T-Mobile’ is going to bear the brunt of the angry mob, but aside from getting very sternly talked to by nervous carriers, is Microsoft going to get out of this scot-free? —Thanks, guy!

It’s been more than two weeks without data for Sidekick users, and T-Mobile finally bit the bullet and announced that it probably isn’t coming back. The quote:

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 as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. 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.

Renowned Sidekick user and a-hole Perez Hilton is not likely to be pleased. [Boy Genius Report]