I would reccomend backing up your contacts information to your storage card in case you ever need to do a hard reset.

Open File Explorer to My Device > copy the pim file to your storage card > after hard reset, rename pim file in My Device to pim1 or something similar > copy the pim file on the storage card to My Device > reboot & you're done. 

At this point you will be able to delete pim1(or whatever you named it if you so choose)

That's great to know.  I wish I would have known this two weeks ago.  Just lost all my contacts.  Bummer =(

Thanks for the awesome tip!

Doing this, would I be able to retrieve back all of my contacts after flashing a rom??

it depends on the rom.  On the generic Altell ron I wasn't able to restore my contacts with the saved .pin file, but with the cooked roms I was able to.  I still ened up flashing back to the original rom because the cooked ones are still a little unstable.  (I couldn't receive picture mail, some keyboard issues, gps only works occasionally).  I'm going to wait until the official update or until they work out some of the bugs.

Sorry guys, I hate to be the killjoy here, but being as how I just purchased a second Touch (my first one commit suicide when it jumped from my hand) I tried the PIM trick. PIM only saves calendar info. Contacts are gone....

But if anybody knows the actual contacts file info, it would be great to know for next time. Just in case...

Karl

**update 8/4/08**

ok, so apparently after a few soft resets my contacts appeared outta nowhere. so i guess PIM is the right file, but why doesn't it work the way it's supposed to the first time?

You are supposed to copy the PIM file on to you SD card or something, then RENAME the current PIM file.  Restart the phone then copy the backup PIM file to where the orginal was... erase the renamed PIM file then there you go.  Theis the restart.  Thats what alot of ppl forget.  I know it works cause I have done it too my touch atlease 6 times already.

When you rename it and restart, when you return to my device, there is the renamed pim and another pim that was put there during the restart. So you cannot add in your old pim because it cannot overwrite the pim that was put there during the restart.

Something is not quite right about your porcedure MinaMan. Keep in mind that your pim.vol file is accessed by various apps, and while being accessed, it can not be renamed, deleted, or replaced. I recommend you make sure your phone connection to Sprint is off. Also, make sure Contacts is closed. In fact, there's no need to have anything running, except for one thing. That'd be your file browser, be it WM File Explorer, Total Commander, or my fave, GSFinder+. Do a soft reset before starting another try. Soft reset after each step, as well as at the end. Keep trying things. It works when you do everything just right.

you have to rename the OLD PIM file, then paste the PIM file that has all your contacts in it.  THEN restart the phone. Then erase the renamed PIM file.  If you restart the phone before you paste the PIM file that has the contacts a new PIM file will come up.  Try that.

Thanks MrGoodTunes, but Akera, your saying two different things thats why i got confused. In your first post you said to rename the PIM then restart and then copy it back in - leading me to get a new PIM when i returned from the restart. And in your most recent post your saying to rename it, paste the old one and then restart so I'll try that and hopefully it will work.