My iPhone has become deaded after being dropped in water. The most annoying part of this is the loss of all my contacts data.

I see there are “backup extractor” programmes around to recover sync’d data from a PC.

Are there any that STW’ers can recommend?

Cheers

iTunes should just sync back with your replacement phone. I think, anyway. Pretty sure that’s what I did when my OH lost hers. No ‘extracting’ necessary. Unless you’ve replaced it with something different, anyway.

iPhone wasn’t insured 😳 and I’m not due an upgrade until mid September… certainly can’t afford to buy an off-contract iphone (not even reconditioned)… in the meantime I’ve stuck the SIM card into an old Nokia…

Looking on the bright side, mazuma or some such site will offer me £50-£70 for a broken iPhone, which is better than nothing…

borrow an iphone and back that up – then re-image it with your backup – copy numbers off and restore borrowed iPhone?

You are aware of Apple “out of warrenty replacement” option, not cheap but £130 odd (I forget the exact cost) should get you a recondition iphone.
Just looked at the mazuma site, and they value my 3gs @ £143 working or £30 broken – are you sure of your figures?
BUT if you did get an out of warrenty replacement you should still get most of the value back, when your new upgrade appears?

Have a search on the internet there are loads of programs but it looks like they all cost

http://www.reincubate.com/labs/iphone-backup-extractor-how-extract-files-iphone-backup-windows/#http://s.reincubate.com/res/i/labs/iphonebe/3_wizard.png

I would try getting hold of another iphone and reimage. Then use the free program from Carphone Warehouse called MY Hub to back up all your contacts. You can then use it to load contacts onto your replacement phone.

I had a problem where my wife’s iPhone wouldn’t sync with iTunes as it wanted to blank the iPhone first. Used My Hub to get contacts off and then back on after a fresh iTunes sync.