0

Help. I can not access my iPhone backup saved on my laptop in iTunes anymore

My iphone was acting up and had to be repaired, so I made a backup before the reparation in iTunes which was saved on my windows 10 computer. Now my phone was reset by the repair company, so yesterday I tried restoring that backup, but it kept giving this error maybe halfway through:

iTunes could not restore the iPhone because an error occurred while reading from or writing to the iPhone?

So I tried again and again but still no succes. So I updated iTunes (on windows 10 through the Microsoft store) and deleted a backup of my iPad which was on my laptop as well (I am sure it was not the iPhone backup ofcourse). But then after looking at iTunes, I could not find the option to restore my iPhone backup. As far as I know, I have not done anything significant for iTunes to not recognize my backup anymore.

My initial question was how could I restore the backup, but now since iTunes does not even say the backup is on my laptop, I want to know how I can get iTunes to "see" my backup. I know that the files still exist, because if I look into the backup folder, it says that it is 54 GB big, which was the size of my iPhone backup. So can anyone help me try to get back my data on the backup?

Sincerely, Hero Jurjens.

Improve this question
1
  • I think I might have unintentionally done something wrong, but since there was already an error, I think there is more to it. Maybe it is corrupted. But I still have hope so any advice is helpfull!
    – Klopjop
    Commented Jan 2 at 22:10

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

There are two different versions of iTunes, one directly downloaded from Apple and one from the Microsoft store. The two different versions store iOS backups in two different places.

  • %appdata%\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup for the direct-from-Apple version
  • %userprofile%\Apple\MobileSync\Backup for the Microsoft store version

You may want to try closing iTunes and then moving the folder for that backup from the first folder to the second (maybe copy it if drive space allows just to be safe). Reopen iTunes and see if the backup appears now. The installer for iTunes is supposed to handle relocating the backups, but often doesn't.

Reference: A blog post I wrote about where iPhone backups are stored. https://deciphertools.com/blog/where-are-iphone-backups/

Side note: The error occurred while reading or writing could be an indication that the available drive space on your PC or your iPhone is too low for the restore. (Especially if there is data on the iPhone you're restoring to now, iTunes may try to back up what is on the iPhone now before restoring the backup.)

Improve this answer
7
  • Hello Kelly, thank you for the response! I have tried looking at the backup folder, but it was already in the correct location for itunes from the microsoft store. I have also tried downloading itunes from apple and copied the backup to the right location but it still is not getting recognized. So I think I have accidentally messed up the backup folder by deleting a file of my iPad backup while deleting my iPad backup.
    – Klopjop
    Commented Jan 6 at 0:58
  • Apple says about backups: "Don't edit, relocate, rename, or extract content from your backup files, because these actions might ruin the files. You can make copies of your backups or delete backups that you no longer need.". (support.apple.com/en-us/HT204215). So I think I have messed up the backup folder. Despite my backup not being read anymore by iTunes, is there a way to still recover data of the backup since the file still exists as it is 54 GB big?
    – Klopjop
    Commented Jan 6 at 1:05
  • Do you know which file you deleted, or was it just some (randomly) lost? Or was this backup completely deleted and then recovered using hard drive recovery software? Do you remember if your backup was made with encryption (password) on?
    – Kelly
    Commented Jan 7 at 15:00
  • If i remember correctly: When I was troubleshooting, I looked into the backup folder and saw the files in it and one of the files had the name of my ipad so I deleted it as I didn’t need it. After that point, iTunes didn’t recognize my iphone backup anymore. I deleted it directly from file explorer and not through iTunes, so I think iTunes isn’t made for that. The deletion of that ipad backup file shouldn’t have messed up my iphone backup. Sadly I emptied my trash can after as I needed storage space, so I can’t recover it.
    – Klopjop
    Commented Jan 19 at 2:34
  • and the backup was never deleted (only that file with my ipads name). And I didn’t backup with encryption.
    – Klopjop
    Commented Jan 19 at 2:39

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .