Lost my contacts after installing iOS6

Question

I upgraded my iphone 4S to ios6 today and lost all my contacts initially.  I managed to get the contacts that were on my SIM card by tapping the Import SIM Contacts. How do I get the rest of my contacts back?

Answer 1

You need to turn off synching through the iCloud and synch through iTunes to your Outlook of Address Book however this will still leave you with linked/duplicate contact cards in your phone and your favorites contacts in the phone as well as all caller id photos etc. will be linked to the old contacts.  In order to get rid of those contacts what I did was added the simple change to the contacts I synched from the computer (I added an exclamation point to the notes sections).  Then synch to your iPhone through iTunes not through the iCloud, then search your iPhone for the first contact name you have in your list.  You will see this will bring up 2 contacts for the same person.  Select either contact then hit the back button.  You will then be in the contact list but you will see in this work around there will be 2 contacts listed for everyone.  Select the contact card and then delete it that does not have the added change so you can tell what is new and old.  This will leave you with the new contact cards and remove the corrupted/lost contacts.  You will lastly need to turn on the iCloud synch and either leave or remove those changes you made (like my exclamation points) from your new contacts.  This is a pain in the tail but the only way I was able to completely fix the issue.
Good luck!