PPCGeeks - Moving Contacts To Storage Card

OK...so 2 weeks ago I synced my Mogul with my laptop at home (Windows Vista). I UNCHECKED all the things to import/sync as I just wanted easy access to my storage card to add some music before I went out to the pool. Add the music, unplug and get ready. Phone rings and I look at the number and recognize it as being my friends phone number, but no name comes up. Weird. So get off the phone with him and realize that ALL of my contacts have been erased. I am furious. I'm truly hoping this has something to do with my laptop that has Vista. To let you all know more about my situation, I only sync my phone w/ my work computer (Windows XP). Unfortunately, as I am the person that receives all the incoming emails for my company, I chose NOT to sync my contacts as I have thousands of worthless (to my phone) contacts on this computer and the only ones that I would like to sync would be the contacts in my phone (is that possible by the way to ONLY do certain contacts...?). So basically, I had to start all over as I lost all my contacts (yes, I understand this is my fault for not backing them up). So then I call sprint and she tells me to search for a "PIM" file and says that is my "contacts" file and that I can copy that file to my storage card to avoid this problem if it ever happened in the future.

So I guess my question is: does this "PIM" file really contain the contacts and can I duplicate it on my storage card to save ONLY the contacts in my phone...? Additionally...I've searched here for a program to backup phone info and I'm finding a lot of mixed information...is there a program that will back up contacts/pics/etc for the PHONE ONLY...?

Thank you in advance.