Hi 8lb,
To recover your missing Messenger contacts, you need to contact the Windows Live Messenger Technical Support Team. You can reach them using this link.
Once you're on the page, click the link beside Windows Live Messenger. To reach their support group, follow these steps:
1. On the Help pane, click on any topic on the left panel then wait for the page to load completely.
2. Choose your Messenger version.
3. Click Get more help on the lower right corner of the page, then click on Get support.
4. Complete the e-form then click Submit.
To recover missing Windows Live Hotmail contacts, create a new post at our Contacts & Address Book forum with your Hotmail account and three (3) deleted e-mail addresses from your Contacts list.
To recover your missing messages, reply to this post with your Hotmail account.
For more information on what possibly happened to your Hotmail account, check out this solution.