Q: Backing up iPhone fails because not enough free space on computer
Greetings,
When iOS 8.4 came out a few days ago, I attempted to install it on my iPhone via iTunes on my PC, because I prefer doing it that way versus over-the-air. I connected my iPhone and downloaded the update, but during the update process, my iPhone failed to backup to iTunes. iTunes displayed the following message:
iTunes could not backup the iPhone because there is not enough free space on this computer to save the backup.
Very peculiar. I have 177 GB free on drive C, which is where iTunes is installed. That should be way more than enough space for the backup.
So I tried clicking Back Up Now under Manually Back Up and Restore. Sure enough, the backup failed with the same error message.
My PC:
Sony VAIO VPCEJ28FX laptop
Intel Core i5
8 GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)
iTunes 12.2.0.145 (64-bit)
My phone:
iPhone 5S 64 GB
iOS 8.3
It's been a few months since I last backed up the phone to my PC, so granted, I'm not sure what has changed since then to cause this problem. I tried everything I could think of to get it working...
I tried restarting my PC. Same error.
I tried hard-restarting my iPhone. Same error.
I updated to the latest version of iTunes (12.2.0.145). Same error.
I tried disabling my antivirus software (Microsoft Security Essentials). Same error.
I tried running Disk Cleanup. Same error.
I uninstalled iTunes, Quicktime, and all other Apple software on my PC. I removed every trace of files associated with this software, including the following folders:
%APPDATA%\Apple Computer
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Apple
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Apple Computer
%USERPROFILE%\Music\iTunes
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple
C:\Program Files\iTunes
C:\Program Files (x86)\Apple Software Update
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple
C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes
C:\ProgramData\Apple
C:\ProgramData\Apple Computer
Then I reinstalled the latest version of iTunes. Same error.
I tried creating a new administrator account, logging into the new account, and performing the backup from there. Same error.
At this point, I'm out of ideas. I don't have another PC on which I can test this.
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
iPhone 5s, iOS 8.3, 64 GB, charcoal grey
Posted on Jul 2, 2015 4:40 PM