Hero lost it!

By a quirk I can't explain, my HTC Hero lost all contacts and text messages. When I use USB cable to Desk Top, computer won't recongnize it. (previously it did) If I can move music from Napster from computer to HTC or photographs doesn't it make sense I can select contacts from Microsoft Outlook and sync them to Hero? How do I go about this? Sprint tech support cays no can do? Me thinks "why not?"