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Big Byte

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 7, 2009
158
0
Hey guys, bit of a problem here: I tried to update my iPhone to 5.01 last night, but when I went to install the update, I was informed that my phone could not be backed up because there is 23g of data on my phone and only 22g available on my laptop. Most of the data on my phone is music (with the library stored on my external hard drive).

How can I perform the update if I can't back up the data on my phone?

I could perform the update without the back up, but that would erase all the data on my phone, which means it would take another 3 days to download all the music back onto my phone.

I could delete/save to the external hard drive about 1g worth of data that is currently on my laptop but, while it may work this one time, how about in the future if I have more than 23g of data on my phone and less than 22g available on my laptop - this seems cumbersome to do every time.

Any suggestions? Thanks.
 

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
1,463
Washington DC
The music shouldn't be part of the backup. Was your external drive turned on during all this? Maybe iTunes couldn't see the music and so it tried to back it up since it didn't know you had a copy of it?

I'm not sure what's happening, exactly, but the media that's in iTunes already shouldn't be backed up again since it can just copy it back from where it is.
 

Big Byte

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 7, 2009
158
0
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll do just that and make sure that iTunes is directed to the music located on my external hard disc drive before updating my phone.
 

Big Byte

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 7, 2009
158
0
Thanks for the help! I directed iTunes to locate the music on my external hard disc drive and it's currently backing up my iPhone to install the latest update.
 
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