Did I lose all my data on my iPhone during iOS upgrade?
December 9, 2014 8:54 AM Subscribe
I plugged my iPhone in to my computer and it says you need to upgrade your software. So the phone was updating to iOS 8.1.1 and it errored out. It says upgrading failed, you need to restore to factory setting and you will lose all the data. So I tried to upgrade again and it failed again. I took it to the geniuses at the apple store and they said there is no hope of recovering my data. Does the hive mind know of a way??
Usually when you upgrade your phone on the computer there is an automatic backup made. Try restoring from the computer. Try restoring from a previous backup (there should be an option for that).
Since you tried upgrading twice, and the second time your phone was already screwed up, it might be one or two backups behind -- but that previous backup with your data might still be there.. If you have any trouble or questions about this, it might be worth bringing your computer along with your iphone into the Apple store or call and have them walk you through the restore process.
posted by shivohum at 9:17 AM on December 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
Since you tried upgrading twice, and the second time your phone was already screwed up, it might be one or two backups behind -- but that previous backup with your data might still be there.. If you have any trouble or questions about this, it might be worth bringing your computer along with your iphone into the Apple store or call and have them walk you through the restore process.
posted by shivohum at 9:17 AM on December 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
There are two ways to back up an iPhone: by syncing it with a computer and by backing it up to iCloud. If you did either of those two things, you can restore from one of those backups.
posted by alms at 9:45 AM on December 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by alms at 9:45 AM on December 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I don't have any backup.
Is there any company that specializes in fixing this kind of thing?
posted by crawltopslow at 10:24 AM on December 9, 2014
Is there any company that specializes in fixing this kind of thing?
posted by crawltopslow at 10:24 AM on December 9, 2014
How do you know you don't have any backup -- when, as I said, iTunes should automatically back up your iphone during the upgrade process?
Anyhow, if you want to see if a company can help you, go to yelp for your location and search for "data recovery" and call a company that has good reviews.
posted by shivohum at 10:34 AM on December 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
Anyhow, if you want to see if a company can help you, go to yelp for your location and search for "data recovery" and call a company that has good reviews.
posted by shivohum at 10:34 AM on December 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
Before any upgrade iTunes would have taken a backup of your phone. This isn't optional, you cannot start the upgrade until it happens.
Do what you need to do to get the phone working - because, frankly, it sounds like you don't have much choice.
When the phone is done (and cycling through the welcome messages in various languages) plug it into your computer and iTunes will ask you if you want to either set it up as a new phone (you don't want this) or restore from a previous backup (pick the one before you started the upgrade, they are all time-stamped).
Don't worry about attempting an update twice, iTunes will never overwrite a previous backup irrespective of how quickly you did it after the last backup.
posted by mr_silver at 10:52 AM on December 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
Do what you need to do to get the phone working - because, frankly, it sounds like you don't have much choice.
When the phone is done (and cycling through the welcome messages in various languages) plug it into your computer and iTunes will ask you if you want to either set it up as a new phone (you don't want this) or restore from a previous backup (pick the one before you started the upgrade, they are all time-stamped).
Don't worry about attempting an update twice, iTunes will never overwrite a previous backup irrespective of how quickly you did it after the last backup.
posted by mr_silver at 10:52 AM on December 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
I took it to the geniuses at the apple store and they said there is no hope of recovering my data.
This kind of makes it sound like the backup failed somehow.
I think a data recovery specialist is your best bet.
posted by SLC Mom at 7:59 AM on December 10, 2014
This kind of makes it sound like the backup failed somehow.
I think a data recovery specialist is your best bet.
posted by SLC Mom at 7:59 AM on December 10, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
I wonder if it's useful
posted by crawltopslow at 8:55 AM on December 9, 2014