Recovering camera roll photos

Question

Recovering camera roll photos

Hello all,

I have had to restore my iPhone 4 all the way back to "New phone" to fix Safari which kept crashing immediately on launch.

I didn't realize that doing so would clear my camera roll (amongst other things). There were some photos on there I would like back.

I have a backup of my laptop from a couple of months ago, which would contain a backup of my iphone made at that time. This backup would have the photos on it (I'm assuming).

Does anyone know where I should be looking or what procedure I might follow?

All help appreciated.

Thanks

Posted on Apr 23, 2011 10:31 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 23, 2011 10:34 AM in response to Abates - Softrak

If you restore that backup it should restore the photos contained in it.

However, as with any digital camera, you should transfer photos to your computer as soon after taking them as possible. Alternatively, get an app like iPicaso that lets you upload them to the web (Google's Picasa in this instance).

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Answer 2

Apr 23, 2011 10:36 AM in response to Abates - Softrak

Here is Apples support document walking you through the process. Good luck.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3603

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Answer 3

roaminggnome

Level 10

106,365 points

Apr 23, 2011 10:37 AM in response to Abates - Softrak

As new would mean "as new". it did not have your pics on it when it was new.

You should be importing your camera roll pics regularly to your computer as you would with any digital camera. most especially before any restore/update/upgrade/etc.

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Answer 4

Apr 23, 2011 10:41 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for the quick reply Lawrence. I'd rather pick through the files than be copying my iTunes stuff back and forth. Copying files around like that has always caused more trouble than it solve usually.

I'm in the industry and forgot this most basic rule. (Or maybe I just thought that since iTunes had been taking care of so many things for me it would take care of this too!).

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I could just uninstall and reinstall Safari on the phone. No joy there.

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Answer 5

Apr 23, 2011 10:43 AM in response to Dadof2Girls

Thanks for the quick link. I'll read that and see if I can tease out the information I need. I've spent a lot of time wandering around the support doc and communities with no joy at the moment.

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Answer 6

Apr 23, 2011 10:45 AM in response to roaminggnome

I had a "Doh" moment when the phone came back from the process.

I was getting desperate after spending hours trying to figure out if I could just reinstall Safari (which is what I really needed to do). No Safari, no web access. Launch Safari = immediate return to home screen = no web access. Sigh.

I've been working in the industry for 35+ years. Should have seen this coming.

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Answer 7

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Apr 23, 2011 10:53 AM in response to Abates - Softrak

This software will extract your camera roll pics from your iPhone backup without the need to restore that backup to your phone:

http://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/

Note: Not endorsed or supported by Apple.

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Answer 8

Apr 23, 2011 10:55 AM in response to Dadof2Girls

Aaah - this KB article describes getting the photos off the phone. I actually know how to do that (and have been doing it more regularly). The KB article mentions that lots of pics on the camera roll slows down the iTunes Backup process, which implies that the photos are being stored in the backup file.

I have a backup of my laptop which will contain a backup sufficiently old that my iPhone photos will be on it.

Is there a way to get back just the photos from the camera roll at that time? (I'm an experienced Windows 7 user, so can navigate around a file set easily).Or, would a process something like the following be possible:

Move the current iPhone backup "off to the side". (Is it in a single file or directory?)
Copy in the same file from the old backup
Restore the phone
Import the photo roll
Move back the current backup
Restore the phone again (backup to today's state)

I'm comfortable in doing this but I don't even know where to look for the "backup" of the iphone on my Windows machine. Sigh.

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Answer 9

Apr 23, 2011 10:56 AM in response to wjosten

Great find!

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Answer 10

Apr 23, 2011 11:19 AM in response to wjosten

Many thanks for the link. This does more than I need, but when has that ever been an issue!

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