Help phone sync deleted old google contacts

[Cwalcott]

i upgraded from a droid x to a droid x2. when i set up the new phone and synched my accounts i found that a lot of my old google contacts were deleted. these were mostly old contacts that i set up before i ever got a droid. emails addresses, phone numbers all gone. i switched over to google contacts as my primary contact system years ago and do not have paper backups for these people.

anyone know how i can prevent this from happening again?
anyone know if there's anyway to get them back? (i highly doubt it.)
anyone know why this happened?

thanks!

- chris