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Iphone XS storage full on bootloop want to update software no restore!

My Iphone XS is on a bootloop and is showing error 14. I dont have anything backed up (I know stupid of me- I thought it was backing up to iCloud this whole time and it was not!) and it does not allow me to update my software. Is there any other way besides restoring? Like any other iPhone data loss user, I would do anything to retain my data =( I called a 3rd party data recovery agency and they had no luck either with Error 14 and it meant my storage was full. Also if I keep trying does it cause data corruption? Please help.



iPhone XS Max

Posted on Mar 24, 2020 2:31 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 24, 2020 2:39 AM

I am not sure what all this agency has tried. You said: "I called a 3rd party data recovery agency "


With the limited information that you have provided, I had to guess the problems faced by you. Some of it can be understood by reading below


You have not mentioned this either:- If you had turned on iCloud and iCloud Photos, your content is automatically stored in iCloud. 

iCloud backup doesn’t include information already stored in iCloud, like Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Mail, Notes, Voice Memosshared photosiCloud Photos, Health data, call history, and files you store in iCloud Drive.


Connect iPhone to Computer / Mac

Use your USB lightening cable --> Resolve USB-related alerts in iTunes - Apple Support

If unable to connect --> If iTunes doesn't recognize your iPhone, iPad, or iPod - Apple Support

Use genuine cable --> Identify counterfeit or uncertified Lightning connector accessories ...

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115 replies

Aug 4, 2020 4:23 PM in response to Gulnazz

I'm absolutely devastated at the loss of my babies' photos. I completely understand I'm the one to blame for not having downloaded my photos in the past year and a half, but this error blindsided me. I took such good care of my phone. One minute I get the message "iPhone storage is full" and then my apps wouldn't work so I rebooted my phone. Instead the phone got stuck in a reboot loop forever locking precious memories. So for now I've resorted to buying another iPhone but I hope and pray for a Error 47/Error 14 fix. To everyone experiencing this unnecessary loss, you are not alone in the immediate sadness and anger. I just hope Apple fixes this problem asap.

Aug 18, 2020 9:10 PM in response to Gulnazz

Same problem! I was deleting files videos and photos and they won't delete. I tried clearing deleted pictures and they won't "delete forever". I figure I have to restart the phone and it just gives me a white logo on a black background. I try the up, down, side button combo and it gets into a restore mode. Update via iTunes predictable failed. Not cool, Apple.

Aug 24, 2020 8:24 PM in response to elcamina

We now had the same problem show up today! This is craaaazy that so many people have been impacted by this issue and yet Apple is silent on the response for support. The impact is very large and ridiculous when you think about it. Who designs a phone that bricks itself when the device gets full?


Stuck in the loop like everyone else here. Please help with a fix. waiting in shelter in place

Aug 26, 2020 11:04 PM in response to Gulnazz

Stuck with the same problem. Such a bad system design that you lose everything on your iPhone if you run out of storage. Extremely disappointed that no fix is available. Let us hope that Apple shows some compassion for their users and creates a patch as soon as possible. Will this problem be addressed in one of the next minor patches, or at least in iOS 14?

Sep 3, 2020 11:41 AM in response to Gulnazz

This happened to two of my phones... iPhone X 6 months ago and now on my iPhone 11 pro...

For iPhone X I was unaware and had no idea it could happen, I knew the storage was full, I got a notification that it's full, I couldn't take pictures because of it so I deleted some and freed up some space, it let me take pictures but I didn’t because I didn’t want to fill up the storage. Then I couldn't open my apps so I restarted my phone and it got stuck on Apple logo. I went to Apple and all they told was to restore and delete everything. They told me even celebrities, politicians get this problem and lose all their data and live their life normally. I was like uh no. I'm a singer, I had pictures and videos of me and other artists, I had videos of concerts, pictures from tours, trips and travels, moments of me and my relatives’ weddings, graduations,childbirth and etc…There was a lot of stuff basically. Probably the most important thing for me which was in the phone is the information of my studies I’ve been storing it for about two and a half years (since I bought the iPhone X) for my exam which is next year. I can’t lose everything, I don’t have anybody who could give me the information.

After I made a drama in the Apple store they told me that I can try and go to the 3rd party place, maybe they’d help, because Apple doesn’t do stuff like data recovery. I remember even when my inner screen cracked and was glitching they told me they’ll delete everything... So now I went to that place and they tried everything, they tried updating but it showed Error 14.

Thankfully I had cracked my screen recently and I brought it to them and they had saved my whole backup in their computer. I put the iPhone X in the drawer, I don’t want to restore it. Then I bought the iPhone 11 pro and they put the backup they had in it. Then I did all data backup to iCloud (because I didn’t do it with iPhone X), it showed about 250 GB (literally everything what was in the phone. Pictures used about 220GB(I have 2 TB plan for iCloud) of backup in iCloud. I thought my data and memories were safe. But no.

After a month and a half of having the iPhone 11 pro I took a nap one day (few days ago) and woke up to my apps not opening again. And actually, it’s been happening previously after I bought it, for some reason. I wouldn’t be able to delete any pictures and apps weren’t opening, I was afraid to restart because I thought it’d get stuck again. So I’d just delete some apps to free up space and restart and it would be fine. This time it wasn’t fine. I couldn’t delete pictures, of course. My storage was stuck on 255.5GB even though it was about 230GB before. I deleted an app which was using almost 15GB of my space and it was still stuck on 255.5GB! Now I surely knew if I restart it it will get stuck on apple logo. After a while it showed that I won’t be able to call, text and use mobile data before I update my phone. I couldn’t do a quick new backup because I’d need to verify my Apple ID first with an SMS. But I knew there was an old backup, so…THEN, after another while it suddenly went from 100% to 1% (battery health is 99%) and almost turned off. I put it to charge at least a little bit. The next day I brought it to the same place they used to fix my phone all the time and told what happened. They tried to back up my files to the computer but computer didn’t show them. We checked iCloud and it showed a backup of 250GB (not the files, just we checked backup amount). It was Friday and the place was closing already so I decided to come on Monday. The worker called me on Monday and told me that he came and found the phone on Apple logo (it was on charger all the time). I thought okay, I don’t have a choice, I don’t have money to buy a new phone, just restore it. I still had the iCloud backup, yeah? So it restored and I could choose the backup. It showed the backup from last Friday (the day I brought it to fix). We thought maybe it was doing the backup but it didn’t show it maybe? Alright I decided to wait till the backup recovers. It finished updating but only 1% pictures or notes I had were there. They were useless by the way. Before that, I logged into iCloud on computer. I only saw less than a quarter of the pictures (obviously not the ones I needed) but the backup amount still showed 250GB (all of it). It now finished updating finally and it’s still not here. Now iCloud backups show only a backup of 1GB I did in 2018…. Where did the 250GB backup go? And why it didn’t appear fully when I was doing the file restore from iCloud backup? Phone was always on WiFi and charger.

I’m still keeping the iPhone X hoping Apple will do something and help us all to find the solution for this issue and we all can get our data back. My friend told me I could try sending it abroad but as I can see Apple users worldwide are suffering from this (I am from Lithuania). This problem is growing day by day, I have hope Apple will think about it and help. Cheer up everybody.


Oct 17, 2020 4:58 AM in response to street521

I actually had backup of my photos through my Lightroom app 🙈 but no. There is no fix for this and it doesn’t seem to be any fix in the horizon. If you love your data and can live without your phone you can try to leave your phone as is and get another phone instead. Until maybe there will be a fix in the future. But I doubt it 🙇🏼🙇🏼🙇🏼 I’m feeling your pain. It’s horrible to loose all your memories in this way

Oct 23, 2020 9:44 AM in response to JanePLH

Oh, what...no! Same story here. How the f**k is this possible with such an expensive device? XS Max...

Storage was full, tried to delete stuff, didn't work and then...the horrible bootloop showed up.

Not knowing what I was facing back then. Now I do...Truly devastating! I guess we all should write complaints to Apple you guys, we should not accept this. Bye bye Apple...

Oct 30, 2020 2:49 AM in response to Gulnazz

Hello everyone dealing with this horrible glitch by Apple,


My iPad was acting weird, some apps were invisible on the home screen, so i went to storage and noticed it was full. So I quickly tried to delete apps, but they didn't go anywhere. Not enough space to delete an app, what!?

I ran over to 'Recently deleted photos' and tried wiping that in hopes to quickly clear some space, nothing. The iPad then restarted on its own. Now enter the bootloop.


I booked a genius bar appointment only for them to tell me there is nothing they can do. I oversold the story and claimed my life's work was on it to get a reaction. He said we can try an update but you would have to sign a form that your data could be lost. I asked him "if you were me, what would you do?" he said lets not do the update, call this data recovery company, its expensive but they might help.


I called them on my drive back home. They offered a free appraisal and a no data no cost guarantee. Sounds great.


Then I got home, and started my research and then told myself, its not even a year old, Apple has to help! So I called AppleCare. They told me to try the Recovery Mode Update via iTunes. She even promised me the Update will NOT wipe the iPad. We sat on the phone for 45 minutes while it downloaded the update. Then the progress bar on the iPad began and we both were rooting it on. Then the nightmare. My Mac alerted me that my iPad had to be restored and that it is now ready to use. Absolute shock. The lady on the phone was terrified, she quickly transfered me to a higher up who gave me run around statements. He even tried to tell me that pressing Update allows a restore if the update does not work. I was never prompted after the iOS update was downloaded to my Mac.


What did I lose? I always use iCloud Photos. I recently came from a trip overseas. During my trip my iPhone would fill up often as the data signals were slow and iCloud needed time, so I would occasionally AirDrop videos to my iPad to allow my phone to upload to the cloud easier.


My mistakes:

-I never airdropped those videos back to my phone after phone made space. (I operate the iPad on another icloud account)

-I never connected my iPad to Wifi during the trip. Except for once or twice.

-I should have been AirDropping to my Mac not my iPad which is inaccessible if it can't turn on.

-I should never have used my iPad as a 'data bank'. Horrible mistake.


Half way through the trip I noticed the iPad did upload a good amount. However that stopped at some point.


Fast track to my return from the trip. My iPad was definitely NOT full when I left Europe, as a lot of videos did upload. I set my iPad to charge on my desk knowing its on wifi, it'll take care of itself, but also noted to myself a 'To-Do' (Airdrop videos back to my phone.)


Im wondering if when I plugged it in to charge did it kick in a 'Download iOS14 Update' and fill up doing that?


I read all your messages and quite honestly the last 3 weeks I have been miserable since this happened especially since an Apple Rep wiped my iPad.


Its not years worth of content or family pictures so I can't imagine what some of you are going through. I feel truly sorry that a device/OS that has been world class since 2007 and has been refined on a yearly basis has led to this absolute disaster for some of you. How on Earth is there not a safe guard to not FILL up your device, especially if the reason COULD be on their part attempting to download an update which we DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR! And to not know this has been going on for months and their AppleCare reps advise to an Update that could WIPE all data.


Originally when they said a Recovery Center could possibly recover it but it could cost ~$2K, I told myself I would not pay that since it was just some 'scattered videos from my trip' and if I airdropped it to my iPad it probably wasn't the best video clip of the day. But the stress that this has caused me the last 3 weeks mainly because Apple literally wiped the drive, I told myself I probably now would pay, just for the relief. But from what I'm reading, I don't think they could have recovered data because the guy on the phone at the Recovery Center also did mention that 'The iPad needs enough space for us to get in there and install a program to extract the data'.


Even though a patch at this point will not help me one bit, I truly hope all of you do get a chance to recover your data one day. Especially if you are dealing with real data loss like baby photos/videos, family events, photos of loved ones, projects. Keep your iPhones/iPads shelved until then. They are not worth recovering and using.


While I've been a wreck since this has happened, I am grateful this wasn't my entire trip. I lost some 'vacation views' but I've always hoarded a few things in my life so it could have been videos I'd never watch again, but I agonize on the idea of what did I actually lose, I will never know.


I hope you guys do find out, one day.


Tony

Oct 30, 2020 3:08 AM in response to tkariotis

Well...for everyone dealing with this problem...I called a small company in the neighbourhood and the guy in charge told me he might be able to fix this. He had a program that tries to safe all data until the very last end...he didn’t make a promise, but said that quite often it works. Ik took my phone and crossed my fingers. 4 hours later I got my phone back, all data safed!!! It cost me €25,-. You can imagine I bought this guy champagne and a take away lunch 😁

Nov 6, 2020 3:50 PM in response to ndvine333

June 6, 2020 this happened to me. I lost all of the photos of my newborn daughter and the first two years of my sons life. I think about it about 100 times a day since (5 months have gone by). I cannot access those pictures and videos and I feel like I’ve lost a love one. Thank you to the person who started a petition but I feel like there’s more we can be doing. How can we really get in front of Apple with this since it is just so devastating? What can we do?

Nov 15, 2020 4:23 PM in response to leodegreeff

Dear leodegreeff,


I'm sorry I ask it again. I live in Belgium and i can maybe go to the shop you are talking about but I'm wondering if you have the same error due to no storage.

Because i contacted every data recovery company in my country and neighboring countries and they told me that it's impossible to retrieve the data in this situation.

Therefore i unfortunately doubt it and i'm scared that if it doesn't work, the data will be gone forever.


I'm looking forward to hear from you

Nov 25, 2020 12:51 AM in response to nikhil2206

Hi!

it happened to my phone today as well. I completely agree. There should be a disclaimer and a solution regardless wether you back up to cloud or not. We can’t be forced to store our information in the cloud. I’ve called dozens of places which do data recovery and all of them said if the storage was full there was nothing they could do. I just lost 3 years worth of photos and videos, it’s very frustrating. Apple should hold responsibility for this issue. I was told there is literally thousands of people with the same problem. How do we all connect and address Apple?

Iphone XS storage full on bootloop want to update software no restore!

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