Address Book erased. How can I restore?

I just bought a new iPhone (my first) and synced it to my computer for the first time. My Address Book on my Mac was erased. When I was at AT&T store, the contact information from my old cell phone was transferred to my contact list on my new iPhone. That contact list was transferred to the Address book on my Power Mac but all of the existing contacts were replaced by the contact list on my iPhone. (GULP!) I believe that I located a file in the Address Book directory named: AddressBook.data.previous. I am hoping that I can restore my previous address book to what it was before I synced my iPhone. I also have back up files on an exterior hard drive. How can I restore the old address book, and then, how do I merge it with the contact list that now resides on my new iPhone? I am praying somebody can help me to restore!

Hi BDAqua--
Thank you so much for replying. After writing my message I made several horrible discoveries. Not only had my Address Book been wiped clean, but my iCal was also wiped clean. In addition my Firefox wasn't loading properly so I closed and reopened it and found that it was like opening Firefox for the first time. My personal toolbar and all my bookmarks are gone. Also, I have an email account that utilizes Thunderbird. The email account is gone. I was prompted to create a new account from scratch. Additionally, all my Desktop files are gone, the Dock was missing all of the program icons that I had put there, and configurations that I had set up such as the right mouse click button are all gone!
There was one piece of information that I left out of my description in my first post, and this may be important. When I connected my iPhone to sync for the first time, I was prompted in iTunes if I wanted to name my iphone "Apple User's (or Appleuser's) iPhone". Rather than just put a different name in that field, I blundered by renaming the username in the Finder Sidebar. It was from that point on that I started having the problems. When I renamed it back to "Appleuser" later on, none of the missing items returned.
So, I don't know if renaming the user in the Finder Sidebar, or syncing my iPhone for the first time caused this problem. I think (hope) somehow that I just inadvertently effected the user information. I think it still must be on my computer, but I don't know how to get it back again. I want to mention again that I do have a backup external hard drive, so chances are that I have the files intact there, if not on my internal Mac HD.
Are there any ideas how I can restore my settings so that I can get these lost items back again?

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Matt

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The best regards
DearSir/Madam
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mehranheidari wrote:
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Address Book erased. How can I restore?

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