Trying to free up some space in my phone's internal memory today and have accidentally deleted/messed up the google service.  So I've lost all my contacts and can't get on the play store.  Samsung Galaxy Ace, rooted, using Link2SD to move apps across to my SD card.  I think the one that caused my phone to crash/reboot and lose the google stuff was called Talk, but I might be mistaken.

Any help greatly appreciated.

(So far I've tried doing a factory reset, which removed my personalisation but didn't restore the original apps).

Can you boot to recovery? I'd probably reinstall the ROM in that case, assuming you we're using one. If not, then hmm. Not sure.

Does boot to recovery mean when you hold the power, vol up and home keys?  If so, yes I can.  I downloaded Odin and some default files and tried to shove them on, it started OK but didn't end after 9 mins (expected time was 5-6 mins) so I stopped it.  I might have another go at that and just leave it going for ages to see if anything happens.

I managed to get my contacts back by linking Kies to my Google Account.  Yay for small progress.

Recovery is different to Download mode.

To flash with Odin you need to enter Download mode not Recovery. You can get to Download mode by holding Volume down + Home + Power (instead of Volume up + Home + Power)

But! You might not need to do that.

As you can get into Recovery, you should (might) have a Wipe Data/Factory reset option. Try that before trying Odin. It probably won't make a lot of difference if you've been deleting things from phone storage, but try it anyway.

You will loose everything on the phone, but the same is true if you were to flash a new firmware with Odin.

lose*

Thanks (heart) , just to clarify, that's a "Yes, Volume up + Home + Power is recovery mode"?

Because that gives me a screen that says RAMDUMP          Mode
I don't seem to be able to take any action on this screen, Volume Up/Down doesn't let me scroll options or anything.

You'll loose everything too. Trust me.

RAMDump mode is when you hold Volume Up + Volume Down + Home + Power.

Yes, Recovery is Volume Up + Home + Power.

Thanks again.  I can't get into recovery mode.  I don't think it's because I have fat fingers either*.

*They're actually quite womanly.

Just tried intentionally holding vol up, vol down, home and power and it goes into Emergency Dload Mode.

I would guess that's for Odin.

Nah, Volume down + Home + Power is download mode -  that's for Odin.  It's confusing, but I'll tinker with it tomorrow.

Odin can be very good at restoring a ROM and fixing a bricked phone. I did it with my S3 and it recovered it and kept all data.

Yup, I use it all the time.  I thought it sounded like he was in download mode for Odin, still think he was but it makes no difference to me.

You might be right, I wasn't shouting you down as I'm pretty clueless.  I just wanted to be clear that I have a download mode and an emergency download mode.

It does make a difference to you because you want me to be happy with a functioning phone!

Well of course I do!