HTC Desire :: Where Are Contacts Stored

Initially I setup Exchange active sync, but contacts wouldn't sync and I had to use HTC sync to manually sync them. Recently, after a root/froyo upgrade, they would sync via active sync. I used the "People" app as my main contacts list.

All was working fine up until last night when I was playing around with security settings and went into the Device Administrators section. I canceled back through the screens but it still deleted my Exchange account.....I'm 99.9999% certain that I canceled that screen. Ok, no harm done, I managed to set it up again.

On syncing the Exchange active sync the first time, all of my calendar items doubled up, so I manually cleared them and manually cleared my contacts also (just to be safe).

The next Exchange active sync worked for my mail and calendar but failed for some reason for contacts. This did start syncing later, but didn't appear to do anything.

My "People" app showed no contacts. Not long later, some contacts showed up, but surprisingly, they were my family contacts. I don't know where they came from. They are not on the SIM (the SIM doesn't contain any contacts). Currently my "View" for People shows:

SIM (9) - unticked
Google (0) - ticked
Show auto Gmail contacts - ticked
Phone (0) - unticked
Facebook for HTC Sense (139) - unticked

Based on these settings, no contacts should show in People.

The "Contacts" app shows the same family contacts, but also a couple of extras that were added to the "Favourites" group.

Now the really confusing part is: the "Search People" app has ALL of my lost contacts. They also all appear when I start the "Phone".

I also added a new contact, but it didn't show in "People". It does appear in the "Search People" though. I think it may have been synced to Exchange.

So can anyone help with with finding where they are stored? They are clearly on the phone. How can I get these contacts to appear in my People app again?