How do I access a backup file?

[Rufuss Sewell]

Here's the deal. I attempted a jailbreak through jailbreakme.com but it didn't work and bricked the phone. So I restored to factory settings which put 4.0.2 on my phone. No biggie... it wasn't that big of a deal to jailbreak anyway so I was just going to go back to my old settings on 4.0.2.

Unfortunately it backed up again real quick after updating and now when I want to restore from the backup it just gives me factory settings. I do have a big 8gb backup dated from before the jailbreak fiasco in MobileSync>Backup but I have no clue how to get it onto my phone.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Kayan]

iTunes should put the backup right back on your phone after you restore it. Are you sure you're not choosing "Set up as new phone" option when you restore?

 

[Rufuss Sewell]

Yeah, I did a full restore as a new phone to get rid of the corruption thinking I'd just put the old backup on there. But it doesn't appear to be an option. I just get the name of the phone which is a newer backup from after the restore.

 

[Kayan]

Well, that's your problem. If you want to restore from backup, then don't restore as new phone.

 

[Rufuss Sewell]

Let me try to explain it better.

1. Made a backup (still have it but want access. Call it Backup 1)

2. JB at jailbreakme.com which bricked the phone.

3. Restored to factory

4. iTunes then made a second backup. Backup 2.

5. I attempted to restore from my Backup 1 but iTunes only offers to restore from backup 2.

There are several backups including backup 1 sitting in the mobilesync backup folder. But iTunes does not list them as being available for restoring. Just the single most current backup which is backup 2.

 

[maturola]

ok First, let's start with your iPhone wasn't BRICKED. and Bricked iphone is unable to restore.

Second the only way to put an iTunes backup back on the iPhone is using iTunes, Sorry there no other way around it, Apple use proprietary algorithms.

Based on the information you provided (which it wasn't really much), there is no reason why iTunes wouldn't show you your old Backups, I got backup on my computer from my Original iPhone back on 2007.

My advice is to move your backup folder to a different computer and try there, also Try older version of iTunes.

At more advance solution would be to use iPhone Backup extrator to Manually extract the Databases and them Manually replace them, however for that you need to be jail broken and I believe you said you are on 4.0.2 (i hope you saved your SHSHs - doubt it you did - ), I would only recommend this if you know your way around databases and SSH and the information on the backup is a "MUST" to recover.

 

[Rufuss Sewell]

I think my problem is that I did not specifically backup the phone. I just synced it. iTunes says it's backing up each times it's synced, which apparently it does and puts the backup in the mobilesync folder. It's just not accessible.