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Level 1

47 points

Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?

Why ON EARTH would I want to do this?? Come on Apple, copy protection aside, this is the stupidest prompt in the history of prompts.

The basic problem (if you Google it) that many many many many legitimate purchaser's of music are running into is this prompt. And here is why:

1. We have an iPhone with a bunch of purchased songs on it and was at one point working with another iTunes library.

2. For whatever reason our computer crashes, the computer is gone/sold, not available, dead, pick your poison, it happens.

3. We setup a new computer and install iTunes and get a prompt to "Authorize" this computer (apparently we get 5 authorizations total).

4. We try to get all the songs from our iPhone back into iTunes and click the Sync button and ...

5. We get the following:

The iPhone "Your iPhone's name" is synced with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?

An iPhone can be synced with only one iTunes library at a time. Erasing and syncing replaces the contents of this iPhone with the contents of this iTunes library.

Really? This is what I have to do, wipe out all my purchased songs so that iTunes and sync with a new library? At what point did Apple think this idea was even remotely in the best interest of their customers? Seriously?

So now I'm stuck with an iPhone with songs on it, a computer with songs on it, but neither able transfer songs ... Happy Happy Joy Joy. This is NUTS!? Why punish people that you can verify they've purchased their songs with this bizarre scheme ... and further more, what if some of my songs on my iPhone were brought in from a valid CD purchase?

So my only way out of this craziness, is to use a 3rd party app that will hack the transfer for me? This is good how? I'm sorry, but at what point did Apple's $40 Billion (yes Billion) profit for 2012 instigated this sort of treatment to valid paying customers?

So ... here I am, anyone have a solution to this using "valid" means (without losing all my music) or is 3rd party hacks my only option?

Rob

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.1.1, iMac ... moved to PCs and Windows 7

Posted on Feb 11, 2013 10:51 AM

Best reply

turingtest2

Level 10

272,795 points

Posted on Feb 11, 2013 11:37 AM

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.

tt2

View in context

44 replies

Jan 27, 2014 11:04 PM in response to turingtest2

turingtest2 wrote:

You will need third party tools. I think your archived voice memos will appear like any other non-iTunes store media and should be recoverable in the same way. See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.

tt2

tq very much tt2. this solve my problem 😀

turingtest2

Level 10

272,795 points

Jan 28, 2014 2:30 AM in response to minakochen926

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Doctor-H

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2014 5:03 PM in response to turingtest2

This was really helpful

turingtest2

Level 10

272,795 points

Feb 20, 2014 5:49 PM in response to Doctor-H

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Doctor-H

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2014 5:55 PM in response to turingtest2

I think i've got another problem, i did the back up as you instructed but when i prompted to restore a message appears saying " i tunes could not restore the iphone because not enough free space is available on the iphone"

turingtest2

Level 10

272,795 points

Feb 20, 2014 6:05 PM in response to Doctor-H

As long as you have recovered all of the media from the phone, and backed it up, you can afford to restore the phone as a new device, then restore it from the backup taken earlier.

tt2

Doctor-H

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2014 6:09 PM in response to turingtest2

If i have the old laptop, with the older iTunes library, is there any easier way to transfer all data to the new library?

turingtest2

Level 10

272,795 points

Feb 20, 2014 6:12 PM in response to Doctor-H

Indeed, see this migrate iTunes library post.

tt2

Doctor-H

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2014 8:41 PM in response to turingtest2

OMG, now it is saying itunes unable to load data class information from synch services

turingtest2

Level 10

272,795 points

Feb 20, 2014 11:18 PM in response to Doctor-H

See TS2690L iTunes for Windows: "Unable to load data class" or "Unable to load provider data" sync services alert,

If you think you need to reinstall iTunes see Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates.

tt2

May 10, 2014 4:46 AM in response to Rob A.

Like others on this thread, my PC was damaged and completely unrecoverable and I needed to create a new iTunes instance on my new PC. Using TuneJack 6.3.0.0 I recovered all my purchased music, music I burned from CDs, voice memos and playlists off my iPhone. It's present in my new iTunes. So far so good.

I want to understand better what is going to happen when I respond to the message, "Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?" I have a current backup of my phone on iTunes. Is it going to recreate my existing iPhone to include my contacts, texts, calendar, photos, apps, the whole shootin' match?

Thanks, This thread has been very helpful.

turingtest2

Level 10

272,795 points

May 10, 2014 6:41 AM in response to lv2bikerace

As long as you have recovered all of the media and backed up the device then you should restore the backup that you have taken rather than use the "erase and sync" option. See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for details. There are additional steps in there that make sure that your contacts and calendar information are preserved and imported into the new computer. Restoring a backup has another advantage in that the backup set is then archived and can be used again in future, otherwise iTunes maintains a single rolling backup for each device.

tt2

May 17, 2014 6:18 PM in response to minakochen926

Hello,

I am in a similar situation, but will not lose any songs if I click ok, but my question is does clicking ok only reset the music library syncing, or does it erase everything-apps/photos/movies/TV (even if they are successfully synced to the iTunes library that I am not able to sync my music with).

Thanks for any help,

Peter

Jun 21, 2014 4:35 AM in response to Peter Hill1

So I finally pulled the trigger and did the "erase and sync". I did this only after doing a backup. Following the "erase and sync" I restored to the backup and It's now working correctly.

Deniage

Level 1

0 points

Aug 19, 2014 6:19 AM in response to turingtest2

turingtest2 wrote:

As long as you have recovered all of the media and backed up the device then you should restore the backup that you have taken rather than use the "erase and sync" option. See Recover your iTunes library from your iPhone or iOS device for details. There are additional steps in there that make sure that your contacts and calendar information are preserved and imported into the new computer. Restoring a backup has another advantage in that the backup set is then archived and can be used again in future, otherwise iTunes maintains a single rolling backup for each device.

tt2

Will "erase and sync" delete only apps and music or will it also delete contacts,messages,photos etc?

Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?