I am away from home on holiday and all my contacts have disappeared from my iPad2. I have done hard reset, but to no avail. Is there any other way to get them back other than syncing with my home pc?

Question

I am away from home on holiday and all my contacts on my iPad have disappeared. I have tried a hard reset but they have gone. Is there anything else that can be done other than waiting until I get home to my main pc?

Answer 1

Upon purchase of my iPad 2 I began saving contacts to my IPad Contacts application that is already set up upon purchase of iPad 2.   I then learnt about synching ( push ) my Gmail contacts to the Ipad 2 contacts 'exchange'.   I did this happily and was very pleased with the results however when synching the first time I chose not to delete my iPad 2 contacts I had began saving upon purchase.   This meant upon opening 'contacts' I had three choices 'iPad contacts', 'Exchange contacts' or 'All contacts'.   There is no way to save ipad contacts directly to the 'Exchange contacts' it has to be saved into a file or vcard and then imported in using e-mail or a PC.
A few days in to using push/exchange I also added calendar and notes to the push/exchange as I was happy with the contacts and e-mail.   I did notice some glitches since doing using push/exchange although I think it began when initially I began pushing contacts/mail there may be a slight chance that it began when I turned on calendar and notes facility to the push/exchange. The glitches that began meant sudden blinking during or after saving in calendar, contacts and notes.   Sometimes this would mean the item added was there but also sometimes it would mean that it was not.   Also double entries began arriving on both m iPad and in my Gmail Contacts online.   These were a mix of contacts that I had and had not not created or edited since acquiring my iPad 2 so the was no pattern or obvious reason.   They were all also a mix of contacts from different groups saved in my Gmail contacts.
Today suddenly whilst adding a contact the contacts blinked shut again.   I re-opened to see what had happened wondering if my contact had been saved or not however not only did what I add not get saved but all approx 500 contacts from both my iPad contacts and my Exchange Contacts vanished from my iPad 2.   I opened and closed the contacts to see if they would return but there was nothing.   I also hibernated and then later shut down and restarted the iPad many times to no avail.   I checked my Gmail Contacts account and thankfully all my contacts were still there.   However, it was still extremely frustrating to have everything vanish from my iPad and then not just come back from there especially as he e-mails and calendar seemed to be still working fine with Exhange/push.   Also, why had the contacts saved to the IPad contacts directly vanished also ?!!   For a £800 gadget not including accessories it really is unacceptable !!!
Finally what worked for me was going to 'Settings', then going to 'mail,contacts,calendars' and then selecting the 'exchange' account and then switching 'contacts' to 'off', then I selected 'delete' iPad contacts i.e delete the contacts saved in the iPad contacts group however with nothing there to lose this time and having a feeling that perhaps that may have contributed to the issues/glitches and this contacts vanishing I clicked on the 'delete'.   I really do have a feeling that perhaps the issues may have been due to having two sets of contacts even though there were only a few there in the iPad before they vanished along with the Exchange contacts.   I clicked 'done' and then I didn't hibernate the iPad 2 instead I shut it completely down.
Upon restarting my iPad 2 I went to see if the contacts had returned but unfortunately once again they had not.   I returned to 'settings', then 'mail,contacts,calendars' and then selected 'exchange' from accounts and switched 'contacts' back on i.e enabled this once again and clicked done.   I then once again switched off ( shut down ) my iPad 2 and waited a while.   Upon restarting I again went back to contacts and found some of my contacts finally arrive but not all.   My 'push/'fetch' for exchange is set to every 15 minutes and every push/fetch showed me more and more contacts until finally I had all but one which has still not showed up !   However, I am once again happy and this time I only have one contacts group I.e for exchange and no separate iPad contacts to confuse me or iPad.   I don't know if this will mean all will be okay now as I do feel like perhaps I cannot now trust iPad contacts and maybe need to print out everything and keep this on me also just in case. I'll keep you posted !