Sorry that happened to you. We're seeing numerous reports of users losing their contacts and other data following the OTA installation.

Most do not, however (http://androidforums.com/htc-droid-eris/80255-im-i-missing-something-just-lucky.html). Those who have lost the contacts usually are able to retrieve them via syncing with google.. some are not successful at that; it appears you are in that situation.

I'm trying to encourage OTA users to *immediately* to a factory data reset on their device following installation of the 2.1 update (although a live battery pull often results in success with some issues).

Doing the reset seems to set things right in many areas we see posted in here as either new bugs or continuations of issues related to what was being experienced in the stock 1.5 OS.

 

Try pulling the battery. I've not experienced this issue, but know some Eris users who have. Pulling the battery seems to do the trick.

 

Export your Excel document as a csv and import into google.com/contacts

Creating or editing CSV files - Gmail Help

 

I got my 2.1 OTA update on Saturday and everything seemed fine but sometime Sunday night into Monday my contacts started getting weird and had some issues with pictures missing, the wrong picture on the wrong person. After fighting it for a day I did the factory reset and so far everything is working really great. I wish I did the reset first thing after the updated because it does seem to clear up alot of issues. I had to reinstall my apps of course but I think even that helped clear up some lagging issues.

 

My contacts didn't sync from google automatically, even though it was checked in the account management area. I went to "settings/accounts & sync" and then clicked on google, then I hit the sync button.. they downloaded and I'm all set.

I was worried for a minute and even exported all my contacts from gmail real quick in case I had to import the file... but it work without doing that.