Dead/Gone iPhone, Getting new iPhone, but not till next week... how do I get contacts/texts?

Another recent question:

HELP with a broken iphone PLEASE:(?
ok so my iphone 3g is broken dead completly gone and i have to wait 2 to 3 weeks to get the the iphone 4
my phone has been broken for a week now and they told me in the meantime to buy a gophone and use the sim card now if i do this will it let me see my missed texts and calls?
will it import my contacts?
but most imprtantly will i be able to see my texts msgs from this week when my phone was broken?

When you plug your SIM into your go-phone, you will get all your missed texts, but you will not see missed phone calls during the time of not having a connected phone. Texts that arrive to your temporary phone will not show up on your new iPhone. I recommend actually disabling the text function of the temp phone so when you plug in your new iPhone, you get all your messages on your iPhone (make sure you do this AFTER restoring from backup otherwise you'll loose them)

Note: the iPhone does not write it's contacts to the sim card, so likely you'll only have the contacts that we on the phone you had previously to your broken iPhone

Feel free to contact us with more questions at griffinconcepts.com or springfieldiphonerepair.com

---- HOW TO GET YOUR CONTACTS FROM YOUR BACKUP -----

Sometimes even severely damaged iPhones that won't display anything will still boot enough to sync to a computer, I'd try that first. If you do have a backup synced to a computer, you can sometimes extract the iPhone contacts.

Required items:

• iTunes
• iTunes backup of the device
• Firefox
• SQLite Manager Addon (Add this by going to the "Tools" menu, selecting "Add-ons" and searching for "sqlite manager".
  

To extract the address book from the backup file, used a tool called Backup Extractor for iPhone. You can download the free version, which will turn out to satisfy your temporary 1-time need.

1. Run the program: You will get a list of backup files to restore (You should see all the available device backups you have done on your computer). Typically, you should choose the latest backup.
2. The restore wizard brought up two options. I had to choose the second option (manual) as the first option is not available in the free version of the software.
3. Navigate to "Library" -> "AddressBook" and checked "AddressBook.sqlitedb".
4. Put the restored file in C:\restored. When the process finished, you should have the file "C:\restored\AddressBook.sqlitedb". You will then have to rename the extension of this file from ".sqlitedb" to ".sqlite".
5. In Firefox, open the SQLite Manager in the 'Tools' drop-down menu, and 'connect to database' by opening the database you just saved.
   
6. Go to the “Execute SQL” tab in SQLite Manager window in Firefox, and paste the query below and run it. It should give you your contacts in a table

   select ABPerson.prefix, ABPerson.first,ABPerson.last, ABMultiValue.value from ABPerson,ABMultiValue where ABMultiValue.record_id=ABPerson.ROWID

7. From there you can manually add them to your temporary Phone, or export to excel database. (Select all and then right-click to get advanced copy options to paste into a new excel spreadsheet).
   

Source(s):
http://www.griffinconcepts.com/?cat=repair&device=iPhone_3G
http://www.springfieldiPhoneRepair.com
http://mela.ertale.com/blog/?p=47

A Clean Restore...

Lets say you had problems with your device, and so you restored your iPhone... Once you reinstall the Operating System (use the Shift key when pressing restore to restore older firmware, or Option+Click for MAC), you can either setup the phone as a new phone and sync your contacts, or restore from backup. I recommend that you don't restore from backup if you had problems with your device. Why? If your restore from backup (for the differences in sync/backup see the previous post) you *might* restore your problems too... esp if those were caused by a rogue program or bad settings. Our recommendation is to not restore from backup for that very reason.

You will still have to resync media (such as movies and music) no matter which option you choose.

Advantages
- Much cleaner install, much like a computer after it has a fresh installation.
- While you might have to start from scratch downloading apps, you can select just the ones you want. The more apps you have, the slower it will run! (You can also sync apps to the phone from iTunes... see the applications tab for sync details).
- re-sync for your ringtones, movies, podcasts, more!
- Once you accumulate enough text messages in the database, it can slow down the phone.
Disadvantages
- You loose your text messages (vs restoring from backup)
- You loose any custom settings (such as email settings) (vs restoring from backup)

Restore from update...

Lets say you have been using an iPhone for a while now, but you upgraded your phone to another used phone and want to put you data on the phone without 'restoring' the software... (many people do not want to update as they will loose the jailbreak... esp if you have a 3GS, you could really mess up and be stuck with a locked phone for a while).

Well it's easy... Connect the iPhone to iTunes and right-click (Option+Click) the iPhone name and get the option to "restore from backup..."

Likely it will not give you the update times of the backups, but the top option will be the most recent. It helps if you BACKUP your old phone before doing this.