How can I get my Blackberry to read my SIM contacts?

September 29, 2007 3:59 PM

Help me get my new Blackberry Pearl to read the contacts on my old SIM card

So I dropped my trusty old Nokia and it split in half. Luckily a friend had a spare Blackberry Pearl that I bought off of him.

Unfortunately, when I insert my AT&T SIM card, the phone works but none of my SIM contacts show up. I've tried the "Copy contacts from SIM" option under the Address Book, but it only recognizes 4 contacts (out of a total of ~30).

How can I get the Blackberry to recognize the numbers on my SIM?

Or, alternatively, how can I get those numbers/contacts off the SIM card?

posted by MaverickX to Technology (5 answers total)

Your SIM card may be slightly damaged OR it could be that the BlackBerry just does not recognize the format that most of your contacts was entered in. In either case, I'd want to see if the contacts show up in other phones, specifically another BlackBerry if possible. If you can get the contacts onto another BlackBerry you can just back up the Address Book and then Restore it onto your own BlackBerry.

If that's not possible though, I'd go to an AT&T store and get your SIM card info copied onto a new SIM card. That might work if it is damaged.

Beyond that, if you can find a phone that will read your contacts, I'd just manually copy them either from phone to phone, or from the phone onto your Outlook and then to the BlackBerry via BlackBerry Desktop Manager.

Hope some of that helps!
posted by heavenstobetsy at 4:25 PM on September 29, 2007

OR... maybe your contacts were not in your sim but in your old nokia...
posted by thilmony at 4:43 PM on September 29, 2007

If you're sure its on the SIM, you can get a USB SIM reader. These guys have one for $7.99 + $5.95 shipping (random google find). I don't have one, but it'd be nice for transferring when one of the phones is non-bluetooth.
posted by notpeter at 6:02 PM on September 29, 2007

Good point. Could be that your contacts were saved only on your Nokia, and not on the SIM. Not unusual for smartphones.
posted by heavenstobetsy at 6:47 PM on September 29, 2007

I'm doing the Nokia -> Pearl transition shortly. Depending on the nokia, as people have already said, the contacts might be on the SIM or on the phone itself. An easy way to tell is that if you have also coded type "home/office/cell" then it's on the phone. If they're JUST generic they could be on either or both.

best of luck.
posted by devbrain at 9:06 PM on September 29, 2007