After updating to iOS 5, my most recent backup is gone! HELP!!

ScarletLark

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Oct 14, 2011
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The iPhone update began Wednesday night; before starting, I attempted to do a backup a few times, and it failed. As the update began, the backup refused to work then as well. After a couple attempts with errors, I checked the list of backups in "Preferences" to see when the last backup was recorded. It said "yesterday," which wasn't too far back, so I let the update skip the backup, intending to let my phone restore from the prior day, should it need to.

Later, when iTunes asked me to select a restore, the one from the prior day was missing. The latest backup showed June 22. I let it continue, just wanting to have my phone in a functional state, but somehow hoping that it had it wrong, that it was actually the more recent backup. After following the iOS 5 setup steps, I checked my text messages - and it showed the last texts were from June 22.

A little upset, but not yet giving up, I found the hidden folder where backups were stored. The latest files were also from June 22.

I also checked the Recycle Bin, which contained an .ipsw file. It had the word "restore" in the file name ("iPhone2,1_4.3.5_8L1_Restore"), so I attempted to use it to restore my phone to its prior state by holding down SHIFT while clicking the restore button in iTunes (a Google search led me to this). After 9 attempts at this, I gave up, and brought my phone back to factory settings temporarily, so I could have a working phone before going to school. I found out afterwards that the file was only an operating system file and contained nothing of my former settings (even though one forum claimed to have found their actual backup located in the Recycle Bin in a similar situation).

I'd very much like to have all my recent text messages, etc. back on my phone. I usually backup my phone pretty regularly, so the fact that the "most recent" one goes all the way back to June is positively bewildering. This is really ruining my experience with the new iOS, and my phone in general.

Why is my recent iPhone backup missing, and how can I get it back?
 

Ivoryplum

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Nov 22, 2008
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Unfortunately, backups are constantly being updated with newer backups.
I'm assuming what happened was your phone backed up after the update, and wrote over the previous backup.

What sort of data are you bitter you lost?
Game/App data? texts?

Unfortunately, once the backup is gone...it's gone.
I'd recommend copying one of the backups into another folder. That way you can always copy it back into the back up folder if needed.
 

ScarletLark

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Oct 14, 2011
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Unfortunately, backups are constantly being updated with newer backups.
I'm assuming what happened was your phone backed up after the update, and wrote over the previous backup.

What sort of data are you bitter you lost?
Game/App data? texts?

Unfortunately, once the backup is gone...it's gone.
I'd recommend copying one of the backups into another folder. That way you can always copy it back into the back up folder if needed.

It's mainly my lost text history that bothers me the most. There were some conversations on there that meant a lot to me.

Immediately after it asked me to select the June backup, I went to the MobileSync folder and copied its contents over to another location. What really shocked me was that the latest file from my backups was dated from June. The only reason I even have the June version is because I created an additional backup then, after my phone spontaneously wiped all my text history while I was using the phone (this happened after it froze; everything else was still intact). So I suppose I'm lucky to have anything left at all, but that still doesn't answer what happened to the more recent backup.
 

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