Palm Treo 650 Sync wiped out my address book--HELP!!

Question

Got a replacement Treo 650; went to do my first hard sync. Not only did calendar not port over, but it completely wiped out my entire address book (except for two records created yesterday). Freaked out!! All my iSync settings are the same as previous and have always worked. What to do? Thankfully I still have my old Treo 650 with address book intact, but no one seems able to tell me how to reverse port that address book to my MacBook Pro.
Pul-eeze someone help me!

Answer 1

This was likely caused by introducing an 'empty' Treo into your synchronization framework with the same HotSync name and without having reset the framework before doing so. The framework properly recognized the new devices as the old—but now empty—device, and removed all of the records from iCal and the Address Book as it should have.
Simply backing up both databases using the built in facility to do so, or assigning a new HotSync name to the replacement device would have either allowed you to immediately recover from this unforeseen consequence, or to have avoided it entirely.
Before you do anything else, you should read this document so that you understand how the synchronization framework operates.
Then, reset the framework by launching iSync, opening the Preferences… pane, and pressing the Reset Sync History… button. This will leave your sync clients registered and your data—such as it is at this point—intact, and set the truth database to appear as if you have never synchronized at all. When you attach your identically named original device, be sure that you choose to Merge data with your computer and not to Replace the data on it.
Once you have merged the data, open iCal and the Address Book and make any changes that you wish to to your data, then pause to back each database up using the built-in option in each application to do so. Synchronize once again, and you changes will not only have been backed up, but distributed across your synchronization pool.