Recover lost photos on iPhone

I'm shocked in awed that I've lost 300 out of 615 pictures well as all my contacts! I thought it was backed up. Apple made Backup for .Mac I thought it was there for iPhone. I like the iPhone but this really *****! Was this detined to happened? I'm in the process of replacing my current computer, so I would simply lose all the data when I change to a different computer or what.

Same thing happened to me last night when i was updating the firmware of my iPhone! i have the contacts and calendars backed up to Outlook, and i thought the photos were backed up automatically when i sync. But after i did the upgrade, i realize i was wrong... I've lost some vacation photos and some funny pics i took for my family and friends...

Anyone got any idea how to recover them?? I've looked at "iPhone Data Recovery" http://www.dvdtoiphoneconverter.net/iphone-data-recovery-software.html but they're still under development... is there any other softwares that could do the job?

I too have lost many photos after the upgrade followed by a forced reset. Unfortunately they were all of my 4 month old baby. I like someone else see that the wallpaper photo has remained and that the photos assigned to contacts are still there. If anyone comes up with a way of restoring these, I am all ears.

Apple - I hope that you take it seriously that everyone is loosing their treasured memories.

I think I might have the worst story on this depressing thread: 1,300 photos of my kids and wife lost from my wife's phone. They were so important to us.

This is the silliest bit of programming that Apple can fix: back up the whole set of data before updating the (buggy) software.

Incredibly frustrating. My wife is seriously angry.

Apple tech: PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS!

My wife is crying right now because during a routine update, she has lost a whole summer of photos from her iPhone - apparently for no reason. These included some really big moment's in the kid's lives which are absolutely priceless. This senseless glitch in the update allows no recovery options. We are loyal Mac users, but this is unforgivable. Has anyone come up with a solution yet? We have not hit the "recover" button. The phone is in "error-connect to iTunes" mode. I think she will do just about anything to get those photos back. Apple - can you help?

A possible solution. "Klix" http://www.joesoft.com/products/klix.php

Apple should learn from this. We're loyal Apple users, most of us probably have an iphone, a Mac Book, a Mac, and an ipod or some of these in combination, in addition to their accessories and software. The least Apple should do is to post a warning of the effects of updating to enable users to back up their files. Apple can restore consumer confidence in its updates by coming up with software that would enable recovery of lost files because of the absence of a caveat in their updates. I was told the latest update was allegedly intended to disable iphones of users who were able to unlock their phones. Unfortunately, even those of us who have remained with the original provider have been affected by the update. Attention: Apple!

Some Success! If your iPhone is still in recovery mode and you have NOT restored this may work.

I have a friend with an iPhone, at some point yesterday her phone was kicked into recovery mode by a failed update or something. She like others had images that could not be replaced so she was going to hold out as long as she had to before doing a restore. She contacted me I googled around hoping to find a way to gain shell access and see if I could copy the images via the command line and I found an application called iNdependence.

http://code.google.com/p/independence/

I installed iNdependence as per the instructions that come with it. Then launched iNdependence and turned on the phone which was already connected. Then I clicked the SSH tab in iNdependence and without ever even getting into a shell the phone left recovery mode and went to the normal home screen. I have given her the phone back and she is going to try and sync her files after she emails all of them to herself as a safety measure. To be honest I'm not sure how it did it or if will work for others but it's worth a shot.

System info:
iPhone firmware 1.1.1
iTunes 7.4.2
Mac OS 10.4.10
iNdependence 1.3b2

However if you have already restored your phone your chances of recovery are very slim as I believe the memory gets wiped as part of the restore process . Short of having the phone taken apart so the flash memory can be accessed directly without the OS in the way and even then chances are slim.

Good Luck