Q: Updated to iOs5 lost everything! Help?

I literally JUST posted about this, and ended up finding this thread. I did the update on my phone (3Gs) a few days ago and everything went smoothly no problems and everything on my phone was still there. Then today, I told my mom about the update and asked if she wanted me to do it for her (she doesn't really know how to do these things) and everything on her phone gets wiped. I feel so bad because all her apps and music that she paid for are gone.. and similarly to everyone else, the backup wasn't available for her. I knew something was wrong because the process to update hers was different from mine and took way longer..

Hi, gang.  Me again.

As I mentioned before, I finally got iOS 5 to work on my iPad 1 with an Air running Lion.  It required completely resinstalling the OS and firmware and treating the iPad as a "new" iPad.  EVERYTHING had to be reconstructed.

The only fallout has been that I can't add my MobileMe address!!!  Because .mac customers were grandfathered in when MobileMe first came out, they technically have two addresses that work: their .mac and their .me address.  You can really chose either one when configuring an email client, whatever the client, on whatever the device or computer...UNTIL NOW!!!

Whenever I set up MobileMe on my iPad 1 (running iOS 5) IT REFORMATS THE EMAIL ADDRESS I PUT IN!!!

I have never freakin' seen anything like this anywhere.  Programmmers!  If I put in blahblahblah@me.com, your software is supposed to take it, and SUCK IT UP.  It's what I typed!

But no, iOS 5 REFORMATS it on the fly to change it to blahblahblah@mac.com.  ***?!?  And once it's changed, that's it.  The email address format of the account canNOT be changed afterward; that's the only field that's greyed out!

Now, interestingly enough, when I log into iCloud, it basically says, "Hello, blahblahblah@mac.com AND blahblahblah@me.com."  So iCloud thinks I have 2 addresses when I start the setup (which I haven't gone through with yet; must get ALL ducks in a row first).

Every Apple tech I talked to gave the same BS: "Oh, but both addresses will work!" cheerily stated.

THAT'S NOT THE POINT!  Don't mess around with my email domain!  RESPECT MA AUTHORITEE!

I pointed out to them that the problem does NOT occur with the test account they gave me.  I pointed out that the problem does NOT happen when adding the MobileMe acount to an iPad not yet converted to iOS 5.  I pointed out that iCloud thinks I have two addresses, lists them alphabetically, and that .mac comes first in the alpha sort.  They were clueless.

Finally, I read the riot act to the last tech I spoke with.  I told him I grew up near Steve (I did), I went to Reed (I did), I've been in IT 30 years (I have), and that this is unacceptable. 

He still didn't get it.  But he did escalate to his manager.

In the comments section of the survey after the chat session, I told them in no uncertain terms that Tim is not steering the helm that well.  Their Board needs to see the writing on the wall (all the threads and posts here) and realized they realized too many new systems, procedures, and softwares on the same day. Maybe Tim's under a lot of pressure from above.  But Steve always took his time.  He knew it was important to get it right.

SO, moving right along, I prepped my MacBook Pro this morning for Lion, and the install is almost complete!

One step at a time.

Thanks for reading.

OK, I bite the bullet and I chose the option to set it up as a new iphone. Obviously I lost all my settings but it worked. I then synced from my itunes without losing anything in my music, video, photo, etc. I disconnected the phone from itunes and reconnected ... only to see that annoying message on the screen "previous restore was unsuccessful. Would you like to ...". I cancelled it. Nothing happens and it propoerly syncs, taking the back up as step 1 as usual. So I do not know what's happening or something in the background is completely screwed up but I decided to ignore that message as I have been doing for sometime with this stupid 1 application remaining to be updated on the itunes despite there is nothing to be updated. Thanks for reading.

I had the same thing happen!! I updated my iPad2 to iOs5 and lost everything!! But I got most of my apps back by going into the APPS store and going to purchased and clicking on the little cloud thing and they downloaded again with out me playing and the ones that I didn't get back that way I typed it into the search thing and next to the APP it said Install and I clicked it and it downloaded with out me paying and same with my songs went into ITUNES store purchased and got them back but I still dont have my Movies back!! Can some one please tell me how to get them back!! And with out paying as well!! Please!!

I have now dealt with upgrading to iOS 5 on an iPhone 3GS, iPad and IPad2 and iPhone 4 and restoring a backup to an iPhone 4s. What I had to contend with may help this discussion.

1. The many and varied error messages I was experiencing all went away when I disconnected every single USB cable from my Mac hosting iTunes. Using bluetooth connected mouse and keyboard to operate the Mac, I connected one 30pin USB Apple connector straight to the Mac (using the connectors on the back of Mac Pro in my case). After the upgrading was done I reconnected all the USB devices and noted how the quality of connection of the USB devices in the Mac is critical. If the USB plug isnt properly seated in the computer the connection isn't made. I hadn't appreciated how sensitive the connections are.

2. With only one 30 pin USB connector in use the migration to iOS 5 then happened without further incident on all devices.

3. I did lose data when restoring to the new iPhone 4s using the available iPhone 4 backup image. After restore I found the 4s had no text messages since 13th August.  Which was weird since I had SYNC'ED and then done an iOS5 upgrade on the iPhone 4 on the 14th October.

Enquiries via Applecare established an astonishing fact THE ITUNES SYNC PROCESS DID NOT BACKUP ALL IPHONE DATA. To guarantee a complete backup the tech guidance is to Ctrl Click on the device showing up in iTunes. A menu shows up as follows...

according to tech support by selecting Back Up from this menu a full backup of the iPhone will take place.

I also learned that before undertaking an upgrade it is also worth checking on the date of the most recent backups available via iTunes by going in ITunes and then at the menu select iTunes>Preferences>Devices which will list all device backups and the date of that backup.

If I had known this I would have forced a full backup of the iPhone 4 before restoring to the new iPhone 4s and so avoided the loss of data. Sadly as the iPhone 4 is now wiped and being repaired I cannot go back and attempt to recover the data. It is a shame that the SYNC process, as well as the iOS 4 to 5 migration process all gave the illusion of taking a full backup when this is not the case. I can now understand why so many people have lost so much data during the upgrade process.

The technical opinion from Applecare was that with the new version of iTunes and new iOS 5 - automatic FULL backups will now take place. I can see (with iTunes 10, Lion, iOS 5)  that backup can now be done to iCloud or the computer hosting iTunes. I will be paying close attention to the date of my backup before I start a restore process.

Me too on my Ipad.  Need HELP.  Can't live without my IPad.

For those of you who had a backup but the restore didn't seem to take...I've been able to fully restore my iPad and iPhone after two days of tinkering with the restore process.

I know this won't help everyone, but I describe in detail how I saved everything in this other thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16384453#16384453

I was having the exact same problem and was just going to start over.  when I went through the setup process, my stuff was all there.  My photos, my apps.  So if you are assuming, like I was, that nothing would be there, check it out.

Ok for everyone who LOST everything but the most important thing is the picture! I found them!!! Apple moved MobileSync, you can fine it here, and at least get them out and rename them! ( they will have a real long indexing given by the system) . Look at the dates modified on the folders, open them one at a time, start  by clicking once on the top file hitting the space bar then down arrow, ha there they are!! My wife will talk to me again!

Apple hid the User Library.

Click GO -> GO To Folder

Enter "~/Library" (without quotes) in the textbox. Click GO. This will take you to your User Library

Open the Application Support folder

Scroll down to the MobileSync folder

I've had the same problem losing all my data and apps, despite having backed up as recommedned in the process. It has taken nearly 12 hours to conduct what should have been a straightforward process and still no data. I'm now relegating my opinion of Apple to that of Mr Gates organisation ie they suck......

I was about to purchase some IPAD 2s for my consultancy business but have cancelled that idea

This really *****!! lost all my contacts when I changed to the new operating system OS5! Is there any help?

I have had a similar experience to everyone here, but as I recall it happened before in the iOS4 update. 

After backing up, i lost my photos, my music, and my videos. BUT they were stll on the phone taking up space.

after a bit of poking around on the forums here, I worked out how to access a lot of the stuff that was missing

TO GET BACK MUSIC AND VIDEO

Try plugging your phone into the computer and launching iTunes.  Now look for your phone on the left hand side of iTunes, and see if the music is there. Play one of the tracks stored on your phone in iTunes, and the phone should now recognise the music (and videos).

I hope this is helpful, but now I need YOUR help!!

My photos are in the same limbo state. Aside from the last 20 or so that are still on the camera roll, all my photos are gone, but seem to still be taking up space  on the phone (as "other"). Bizarrely, some of these photos still appear tagged and accessible on the "Places" map, bt not in the "albums" tab.

I am fortunate in that I haven't lost the photos (I backed them up before I started) but they are now taking up a consideable chunk of my phone's disk space. I am nervous of the iExplorerwork around as I'm not keen on deleting files will nilly!

HI all, If you are receiving a warning saying the 'sync was interupted, press continue to restore....' try going to to iTunes Preferences and reseting 'cache' and 'warnings'. I have had the same issues.

Don't expect any help from Apple. They either don't know what to do or are to arrogant to admit there is a problem or both

anyone else get the impression that without Steve at the helm, Apple is already on a slippery slope to mediocrity? I just noticed an app listed in the App store gives the message.... "unavailable"... something I've never encountered before. Stringent checks used to mean nothing went public until it was perfect. It's these little quality issues that worry me.

I was having the "error -34" issue. 

Fortunately, I followed the advice of a post in this thread (thanks!) to reset the iTunes Store Cache and Warning Dialogs (in the Advanced pane of the iTunes preferences) and, to my surprise, I have a working iPad.