"iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes," is there anyway to retrieve my photos before restoring?

Same thing happened to me while upgrading to the latest 6.1.1. It crashed during the setup and now I am forced to delete everything. I don't want to lose my pictures, is there anyway to get a backup of images before I restore? ugghhhh

SeemVision wrote:

...is there anyway to get a backup of images before I restore?

Once the Device is asking to be Restored with iTunes... it is too late to save anything...

To minimise loss... Connect to iTunes on the computer you Usually Sync with and Restore from the most recent Backup...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414

Restore from Backup

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766

Thanks for the reply. How about Apple store's "Geniuses" ? Can they somehow save my images? I didn't get a backup of my images, and had no clue the latest update 6.1.1 could crash during installation.

SeemVision wrote:

How about Apple store's "Geniuses" ?

You would have to ask them.

False alarm? I just recovered my images after being told yesterday by an Apple "Genius" that my data was "already lost if it was in recovery mode." This is what these apple boards have all said, too. On the one hand he, and the boards, may have been right. On the other hand, they are wrong. iTunes apparently did a back-up of my data before I synced my phone two days ago (and I do not have it set up to sync wirelessly or automatically upon plugging in my iPhone). I am sure there will be many knowledgeable users who claim that this can't happen, but I really don't care. What I care about is that a) I spent the last two days thinking I had lost everything from my recent photos which are simply too precious to part with without a fight, and b) it turned out that after two very long days of panicking and searching for solutions, I was able to restore everything without resorting to unapproved methods that seem quite risky to me, which is what many users, even on these apple boards, were recommending as the only alternatives for possibly retrieving data, and which require a sort of knowledge about programming and devices that I don't have, and don't have any interest in acquiring. I use mainstream, pre-packaged devices that do that for me, because I don't want to deal with it myself. It's part of the perks for me of owning an iPhone (and all of the other Mac devices I own and have owned in the past).

If iTunes could have allowed me to see the most recent back-up and its contents prior to my restoring the phone, I would not have spent the last two days panicking and trying to come up with alternatives. The particular program I ended up using, dr. fone, basically categorized as a data recovery program that allows you to view your most recent back-ups and devices as you would view hard drives, claims that it can also retrieve data directly from your iphone and other devices, but fortunately I did not have to go that far. Everything was in my most recent back-up file.

Maybe Apple could provide a feature in iTunes that allows users to view the contents of most recent back-ups prior to forcing users to restore their phones. I feel sorry for those those who in fact may have lost photos. People do their best to back-up their phones regularly. I think posts or Geniuses that boil it down to "too bad for you" and "see, you should have backed up your phone," are on the whole ungenerously harsh to users who are trusting that the products and updates they purchase will work well.

I hope you submit your feedback and suggestions to Apple. That's a good idea about backup previews, even without the ability to selectively restore contents.