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How can I save my pictures when I have to restore to original settings?

I went to update my software to the IOS 6 now my phone is telling me it must connect to I tunes which is in turn telling me it needs to restore to original settings. Problem is that none of the 500 pics have been synced to the computer. How can I save them before I do this?

iPhone 4 (8GB), iOS 5.1.1

Posted on Oct 3, 2012 4:37 PM

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18 replies

Oct 3, 2012 4:57 PM in response to railroad82

"My cameras all have sim cards so I don't save them to my computer."


So you have all of your camera pics on memory cards and nowhere else? That is a terrible idea.


You should NEVER have any data/pics/music/etc in only one place.


" I shouldn't be having to restore anything after a software update."


And computers should never fail and floods should never destroy your property and thieves should not steal from you and so on. However, these things happen. This is why it has always been very basic to always make sure that you have at least two copies of your data.


The iphone is not a storage/backup device.

Oct 3, 2012 6:09 PM in response to railroad82

You are having to restore because something didn't go quite right during the update process. It happens. The iPhone is basically a computer.


Do you not backup your phone on a regular basis?


What would you have done if you'd dropped it? If it got stolen or run over by a truck?


It's trivially easy to backup your phone. Just plug it in and let iTunes do its thing, or better yet, turn on iCloud backup and let it backup overnight to the cloud while you sleep. You were running 5.1.1 before according to your signature, so you had this capability. In fact, you were asked when you first set up iOS 5 if you wanted to turn on iCloud backups...


If you didn't back them up, they are gone.

Oct 11, 2012 5:38 PM in response to railroad82

railroad82, I agree. There should be a fail-safe for iphone users who don't own an iMac, which does automatically back up pictures and videos. A simple alert, email, text notification, any type of reminder for windows users to import their pictures/videos first. Yes, it instructs you to do this in the fine print of the user agreement, it probably says somewhere in the user agreement not to update while on wi-fi too. But this is the real world with humans that make mistakes and a company like Apple has the money and ability to provide a fail-safe for this situation. I was tired and getting ready to go on vacation and thought I should go ahead an update to get the new panoramic view on camera. the update box popped up before the import pictures and I clicked. Then it was too late to undo because it had already sent it into recovery mode. So the question is to all those who would make us feel worse than we already do. Are you going to rub our faces in our mistakes or help find a solution to the problem?

Oct 11, 2012 6:19 PM in response to edrn12

edrn12 wrote:


There should be a fail-safe for iphone users who don't own an iMac, which does automatically back up pictures and videos.

iTunes automatically does a backup of the device prior to the update (if updating from the computer) regardless of Windows of Mac.


Windows users can get the same automatic uploading of pics to the computer via photostream by installing iCloud Control Panel.


Stop whining. You made the decision to update without first copying the pictures off the device or doing a backup via iTunes. Grow up and accept the fact that you made a mistake and have now lost data. Move on with your life.

Oct 11, 2012 6:31 PM in response to railroad82

Like I said before this was a question and so far no one has actually had an intelligent answer. But here is an update for all u know it all geeks who apparently get off on Apple message boards, phone was taken to Apple and in there exact words " We're not sure what happened, it looks like it just crashed. Please take this new phone and our apology for the inconvenience." So in the future for all u know it all smart *****, If u can help someone with ur knowledge, by all means do so. But if all u can do is play keyboard cowboy and try to make fun of ordinary people who have a life and don't live and die by a product made by apple be the better man and just don't reply

Oct 11, 2012 11:30 PM in response to diesel vdub

Diesel--I did everything you're talking about, including setting up iCloud control panel and it still didn't save the pictures and videos. I have everything else. My contacts, notes, reminders, songs and apps are all on icloud but it didn't save the pictures and videos. For me, the phone is worthless/useless without the pictures and videos. Even if I had lost everything else....I would have been fine with that because you can replace it. You can't however, replace the photos and videos of your kids or pictures of the day you spent with your father who's fighting a battle with cancer, when you spent a really great day with them. I went to the Apple store to speak with someone they have the audacity to call a "genius" and he wouldn't even look at my PC or phone...wouldn't even look when I asked. He simply gave me the status quote that I needed to restore to original settings. These aren't geniuses. They are customer service reps with scripted remedies to consumer complaints. And Railroad is correct. If you aren't going to offer helpful advice, then don't comment at all.

How can I save my pictures when I have to restore to original settings?

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