Dear Aunt TUAW: Recovering iPhone data and media
Dear Aunt TUAW, I'm from the Philippines and I would just like to ask for your help. I don't know if the news had reached you guys but there had been some massive flood lately in our country brought about by super typhoons storming over our land. Anyway, I own an iPhone and thank God I brought it with me when the flash flood came which sadly destroyed my PC and laptop. Now I have a new desktop which leads me to my problem. I'm afraid to install iTunes in it because if ever I'd sync my phone with the new desktop, I'm pretty sure all my iPod files will be gone. Are there any work around for it (so that I can still save my files on my phone)? Will jailbreaking help (as a last resort)?
Thanks and more power! =)
Best regards,
Rand B.
Read on for Auntie's answer...
Dear Rand,
I'm so sad to hear about the flooding and typhoons although I'm grateful you're okay, despite the loss of your PC. Fortunately, there are several tools that allow you to recover your data from your iPhone back to a computer. On the Macintosh, there's PhoneView from Ecamm, which I have used and can recommend. For Windows, I googled up Anapod CopyGear, Pod to PC, and TouchCopy. I have not tested any of these myself.
These packages let you off-load your media files (audio, video, podcasts, and so forth) and, at least in the case of PhoneView, access other items like your notes. You won't be able to recover every detail, but you can save as much as these applications allow.
Do not restore or jailbreak your iPhone until after you've recovered your data. Add that data back into iTunes, and you'll be ready to sync to the new computer. Here's hoping everything works out as best as possible.
Love & hugs,
Auntie T.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jayson said 3:15PM on 10-26-2009
Don't forget iPhone Backup Extractor: http://supercrazyawesome.com/
Reply
Brian Allen said 4:47PM on 10-26-2009
All you have to do is sign into iTunes first and then connect your iPhone. It will ask if you want to come everything off your iPhone.
My wife's computer need never touched her iPhone. I simply switched her iTunes account to mine, which was the account the phone had been using on my computer. I connected her phone to her computer and iTunes ask if I want everything copied into her iTunes includes applications, music, videos, etc.
Reply
Erica Sadun said 4:48PM on 10-26-2009
Unfortunately, that will only transfer purchases from iTunes, not music you have bought elsewhere or ripped from your CDs.
Elliott said 5:37PM on 10-26-2009
help! i use dell and blackberry for work, but my home setup is an iphone and a macbookpro. my dilemma: I want to manage only one calender that all these devices see and update. my current situation: 1. blackberry and outlook (dell PC) communicate flawlessly between each other. 2. iphone connects via the air to the outlook, but it seems to not sync to the ical on the macbook. and macbook isn't on speaking terms with anything, it seems. ideally, my calenders on all these devices would match, and i could update from any of them to all the others. i tried calgoo and can't even get it running, and entourage just won't import outlook although this is possibly my own fault. i feel like it should be possible, so i'm turning it over to your big brains to think through.
Reply
Elliott said 5:40PM on 10-26-2009
Elliott again...i should add one tiny detail that may not matter...as with all things mac/pc, it's an uneasy relationship. while the outlook pushes updates just swell to my iphone, my iphone does not return the favor, and any event i add to the iphone stays with the iphone, it's like some sort of bizarre fight club thing. help please!
ep2002 said 5:44PM on 10-26-2009
Dear Auntie TUAW,
I have looked and looked all over the Internet for answers and even spoke to Apple Care on numerous occations, but so far, no answers. My question is how do I get Internet Sharing working again? Ever since my switch to SL (running the current 10.6.1) this feature which I use from my iMac to broadcast to my wife MacBook, our Wii, and our two iPhones, occationally stops working. It was PERFECT on Leopard. I don't understand. The strange thing is that it will work for a period of time then randomly stop data transmission, but still show up like it is working as denoted by the wifi icon.
Help me!
Thanks in advance.
Reply
mark said 8:32PM on 10-26-2009
Thanks for the letter Rand, and thanks Erica for the article. This is something I have never thought about to tutorialize. It's even better in that you can get the program as a trial.
Reply
M Lee said 11:12PM on 10-26-2009
Dear Auntie Tuaw,
Is there anyway to connect to the internet with a wifi-less ipod touch? More specifically, can i tether my ipod via usb and have it use my computers internet? The wifi antenna broke after a drop rendering it useless. other than that, the ipod is fine. At first i was fine without wifi but then i discovered the need to download tap tap revenge songs! After countless hours of google, the closest thing i've found iphone tunnel suite. however it only lets you ssh which does me no good. Any help would be be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Reply
Julien Ott said 5:20AM on 10-27-2009
Hi Aunt, for iPhone 3GS recovery, please consider this article http://log.ijulien.com/post/182804914/iphone-3gs-data-recovery
Reply
iBearTouch said 9:09AM on 10-27-2009
A similar type of problem...
I have a video podcast that is no longer listed in the podcast directory, that I want to remove from iPod Touch A and either move it to my MacBook or to iPod Touch B.
I am guessing to get it to B, I will have to get it to my MacBook first. Any advice on how to pluck this outta there?
Reply
Dan said 1:57AM on 10-28-2009
Try Senuti if you want to offload songs and videos from your iPhone to your new desktop. This is the one I used to rebuild my iTunes library from my iPhone last year when I got a new MacBook to replace my stolen Mac.
If your iPhone is jailbroken, you might find DiskAid useful as well. There you can pull out all your info and save it in a flash or external drive as a backup. I'm from the Philippines too, and my house got flooded as well, so I can relate. HTH
Reply
Rajat said 4:11AM on 11-01-2009
for failsafe recovery in situations such as losing ur itunes library or moving to a new computer, the best approach is keep ur itunes library backed up. all you need is a backup of the xml and itl file located in itunes library folder. using just these two u can sync ur iphone wid any computer on earth. my iphone can sync wid 2 macs at home and one at office wid no issues.
Reply
Julen said 3:13PM on 11-09-2009
I have just the opposite problem. My iPhone was stolen 4 months ago. I am waiting all the year to purchase the new one (hopefully in June). Will I be able to have all the data (basically SMS) back in the new terminal? Thanks!
Reply