Introduction
About one year ago I had the problem, that I could not restore my Sony PC Companion backup to my phone. Back then I was really frustrated, because I found no (free) solution to get to my phone book. After some research I found out, how the data is compressed, and I made a little program to decompress the data in a very simple way. With my solution you can extract data from Sony PC companion backup for free and the program works on all platforms. I for myself used it only to get my phone book, and this tutorial will be about how to get your phone book back, but in theory you can get back everything, if you know, where to search. The program won’t work if you encrypted your phone. If you want to get you messages back, take a look at this tutorial. If you want to do any of those I can help you via email.
My program got downloaded over 50.000 times and I got a lot of great responses, so chances this solution works for you, are rather high!
This tutorial is also available in German | Russian
Restore data in 12 easy steps
For this solution you need to install Java (RE)! Time estimation for the tutorial: 10 minutes
The program works on Windows, Mac and Linux, with this 12 step guide you will be able to restore your phone book, but you could use it for any other files too.
- Navigate to the folder your backup is saved to. By default your backup is saved to C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\Sony\Sony PC Companion\Phone Backups
- You should find the backups with the file extension “.dbk”. Create a copy of your backup (ctrl+c, ctrl+v) just in case something goes wrong.
- The dbk extension is actually just a zip file, so you can just rename the file. If you see the .dbk extension in the file name you can skip this the step. Otherwise you have to disable a windows explorer feature. For that click in your opened window on organize -> Folder and search options and there switch to the tab View and disable the feature Hide extensions for known file types.
show file extensions in windows 7 If you having this problem with an other version of windows just google “windows yourVersion show file extensions”.
- Rename your file copy to backup.zip (F2)
- Open your file (double click). If you have no program to open zips I highly recommend 7zip.
- Now you have to navigate to your contacts file. There are different folders for different android versions and phone models. Here is a list of possible locations:
Applications\com.sonyericsson.android.contactsimpo
Applications\com.sonyericsson.android.socialphonebook
Applications\com.sonyericsson.android.contactsimport
Applications\com.sonyericsson.localcontacts
If none of these folders exist or has the wrong data, take a look at other folder in Applications\com.sonyericsson. If you find a new one please post a comment or send me an email. - In the folder is a file called fullbackupdata. Copy this file to your desktop (Just drag&drop it there).
- Now download my program: Download (Alternative-Download)
- Extract”restoreData.jar” and also put it on the desktop.
- Almost there! Now double click on “restoreData.jar”. Within a few seconds a file with the name “restore.tar” should show up. If it doesn’t make sure that you have java installed and both files are in the same directory (e.g. desktop).
- Open the file with 7zip or a similar program.
- Now navigate through the folders until you find a folder with the name “f”. In this folder you should find a file named “full_backup_vcard.vcf“. This is the one you’re looking for. You can use this file to get your contacts on your phone again or you can also import them to your windows contacts. If you don’t find the file, go back to step 6 and try a different folder.
For all interested, the program is a fork of Android Backup Extractor by Nikolay Elenkov. He actually did almost all work, I just added a few changes to make the program easier to use (for this particular problem). If you want to, you can download his program and compile it yourself, then you just have to fill in the needed arguments yourself.
Restoring encrypted files works, if they were password encrypted in android itself. If you set a password when creating the backup in Sony PC Companion, I sadly can’t help you (more information). For messages take a look at this tutorial.
I hope this program helped you. If so, I would be happy if you leave a comment or show your appreciation by clicking on the donate button. If you have any questions, leave a comment or write me an email. I’m also happy to hear from you, if you hadn’t had problems!
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