Argh! About to throw my iPhone out of the nearest window.

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
So I decided to reset my iPhone after the release of iOS 6 a few days ago, for a general clear out etc.

I assumed (it seems wrongly) that my iCloud data would be completely separate from the contacts and photos stored on the device. So when it said it was going to delete all data, I said yes. By the way, I had to say yes, they just wanted to create the illusion of choice, I guess.

Well, my contacts have been restored from the iCloud as I expected it to do but over 1000 photos I took on holiday recently appear to have vanished. Why?!

Add this to the fact that my home button and vol+ buttons are failing and decide to sometimes work (so much for build quality) after just 12 months, the fact that iOS 6 is in many ways inferior to iOS 5 and the fact that half the reason I did the bloomin' reset was because iTunes told me I could only manually manage MY files if I deleted everything and synced with its version. Seriously, what the hell. My iTunes was empty!

I hate you Apple, and I will never buy one of your lousy, overpriced products ever again. I deserve this for giving in to your sales pitch. :mad:

So yeah, any suggestions on how to get my photos back or have Apple deleted them forever in their constant attempts to control the way the user manages their files (without asking).

Cheers. :)
 
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vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
My first thoughts would be a recovery program,there are some free ones about,but you probably know about them and have already tried it.:)
 

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Unfortunately I can't help but you have made the error of assuming the pictures you took on your iPhone were yours, it's likely all your photos (and possibly some vital organs) belong to apple because you took them on their device...

If you can access them on your cloud storage thing they will be recoverable. Does the iPhone not sync photos with iTunes?
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Just to confirm I only had these ones stored in the cloud for the last few weeks, hadn't got round to backing up the cloud copies (stupid I know) so at the mercy of iCloud here.

I dunno what sycs with what these days to be honest, iTunes just confuses the hell out of me and everybody I know, I try to avoid it like the plague. Everytime I use it it seems to delete something. :p

As far as I can tell they've just vanished from the cloud and I can't see a backup option anywhere, no idea why it's done this.
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
My first thoughts would be a recovery program,there are some free ones about,but you probably know about them and have already tried it.:)

I did try, but cause of the way iPhones integrate themselves into Win Explorer, it's listed as a "portable device" and all the software I tried will only search the current folders (which are now new and empty) and won't actually scan the phone's memory itself. :pinch: So any hope of getting to the originals looks to be futile. Thanks though. :)
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Unfortunately I can't help but you have made the error of assuming the pictures you took on your iPhone were yours, it's likely all your photos (and possibly some vital organs) belong to apple because you took them on their device...

I think they probably claim ownership of my soul too. :(
 

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
Doesn't look too promising,I would try phoning them on tech support if there is such a thing to see if there's any possibility of recovering the files.
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Ahah! :D Panic over, they're very slowly beginning to re-appear, after about 3 hours of being on WiFi lol. They should probably add some kind of notification when it's empty so people know it needs to re-download them (think that's what it's doing) and don't think all their stuff's gone like this. Bit confusing cause surely if they're on a Cloud server they should be immediately accessible, bit weird.

Ah well majorly relieved, didn't wanna lose those. :)

Cheers anyway guys.
 

tom_gr7

Life Serving
gutted tom, i know how ya feel about losing stuff! I lost a ton of music as when I ripped a load of my OWN cd's using my old laptop to a external drive. But windows media player had "protect file" on as default, so as I ripped the music, it became protected as a result locked the files so they cant be used on any other system but the now dead laptop. i still have the files just cant use them....lol n i dont have the cd's nemore.... -.-

gutted for ya mate, hope ya get them all back.
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
gutted tom, i know how ya feel about losing stuff! I lost a ton of music as when I ripped a load of my OWN cd's using my old laptop to a external drive. But windows media player had "protect file" on as default, so as I ripped the music, it became protected as a result locked the files so they cant be used on any other system but the now dead laptop. i still have the files just cant use them....lol n i dont have the cd's nemore.... -.-

gutted for ya mate, hope ya get them all back.

Cheers Tom. Ergh yeah it's the worst when that sorta thing happens.

Only seems to have partially restored so I went looking for a way to download them to a Windows PC off the iCloud and found this :http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1455

Didn't even know that app existed till now, thought it was only the web thing that was available (https://www.icloud.com/) that doesn't let you access everything including photos etc. as this does.

Anyway the prog is coming up with a server error so fingers crossed that's why this problem has occurred today and they'll fix it soon lol.
 

Buzz

Master
For future reference mate, Get dropbox

you need both the software
Comp
https://www.dropbox.com/home

and the app (get from app store. Its free)
App for iphone
https://www.dropbox.com/iphoneapp

then when you plug phone into comp once you set dropbox settings, it will upload all the pics on your phone to your dropbox account online, as well as adding them all to the dropbox folder you sellect on your computer. Not just pictures. You can upload anyfile to your dropbox and can be retrieved from any computer anywhere as it all syncs with your online account.
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Cheers Buzz. :) Yeah I will do from now on. Never trusting iCloud again, it never did restore all of them, lost most of them in fact. It stopped after the first few 100.
 
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