I cannot find my back up files from my iphone. I upgraded to iOS4 and my files were not reinstalled. Itunes does not show the backup files I need and the backup file that was installed on my computers drive is of the correct date, but it is empty. Is there anywhere else I may look to find them?
I have tried 3 times, and on my 4th to get iTunes to upgrade my 3G to the latest OS4. Here are a couple of observations about iTunes
1. The status information provided by iTunes is completely worthless. For over an hour all I see is "Backing up "Jeff's iPhone" -- how much has been done, how much longer will it take, how about some feedback? so far, I give this a FAILING grade.
2. When iTunes does backup the iPhone, why does it need to backup again and again? Why not create a CRC or checksum or some way to know that the phone has already been backed up? This approach of backing up every time is just brain damaged software design.
3. I have a 16 GB phone, only 8 GB is in use, why does it take 3 hours to backup? It's on a USB 2 port, machine usage is less than 50%, basically this is really lame.
Every time I decide to "Sync" the iPhone I conclude that this is the most unreliable application I own, it provides the least amount of feedback, it fails more than 1/2 the time, and it renders the phone relatively useless since during this long and drawn out procedure prone to failure, the phone is unusable.
Apple: How about (1) feedback on how far along the backup is, (2) what is the program doing? (3) where are the backup files, (4) can I backup the backup files, (5) why backup a phone that was just backed up? Just put a status signal (byte, bit, phrase, checksum whatever) in the phone to signal to iTunes "This is backup xxxxx" so if itunes has backup xxxxx it doesn't need to go through this tedious, wasteful, time consuming procedure that will most likely fail anyway.
I cancelled my iPad 64GB order based on the fact that iTunes can't even handle this 16 GB iPhone, how can I expect it to properly backup, restore, update, sync a much larger system.
PS: The iTunes data is on a 750 GB external drive that works flawlessly with every Windows application.
iTunes is a poorly designed program, how about fixing it?
just do a manual backup instead of initiating your upgrade to iOS4. right click your device and then click backup. It will do a manual forced back up. Once you have your files backed up...initiate the upgrade and click on the X in the upper left hand corner by the "syncing" info. This will cancle the back up and move onto the upgrade. But make certain your files were actually backed up by looking on your hard drive.
This actually sounds like a solution, but where do you "make certain your files were actually backed up by looking on your hard drive." What do the backup files look like?
Where are contacts stored when they get backed up? I use Windows, and no Winapp e-mail client has the same set of fields as I setup in the iPhone. Have they (Apple) figured this out and store the contacts as a large block of data in their own format, or do they still try to force a Windows app to deal with iPhone contacts (which will NOT work if contacts have multiple phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc.). I think they tried to force Outlook or Outlook express to handle these contacts, and that is an utter failure for complex contact lists.
If I setup iTunes on another computer, how do I get all the purchased APPS to show up on that second computer? There is no obvious way to do it, but maybe a hidden answer exists somewhere.
Thanks for the help. I canceled the automatic upgrade (after 45 minutes) and I'm testing your solution now... It seems like it might work.
Unfortunately, the manual backup failed as well. Since there is absolutely no useful feedback provided by the backup procedure in iTunes, we are left with nothing on which to base a conclusion as to what needs to be done, how to fix the problem, etc.
I could delete all my e-mail accounts, or change my contact information to avoid using field names that don't exist in my Windows e-mail client, or reduce the number of apps on the iphone, or punt. Without any feedback from the backup procedure, it is a complete mystery, and will remain that way until I decide to delete everything on my iphone and start from scratch. That may happen when I have hours and hours of time to devote to manually backing up all my contact information, my e-mail accounts, data in notes and URLs stored in the browser favorites. Or maybe I just forget updating to OS4, or using my iphone as an iPod. The photos still come off the iphone when I hook it up to the data cable, but that's done by a Winapp, not by iTunes.
