lost contacts and backup !

[tamimi]

Hi,
My father accidentally synced his iphone with my moms PC.... all his contacts were deleted and synced with my mother's Outlook ( no contacts ) so he went back to his PC to "Recover From Backup" but when he connected his Iphone, ITunes automatically created a backup over the old backup!
so he tried to recover his iphone but the new backup has no contacts

is there a way to retrieve the older backup ?
---------
I'm familiar with recovery application; Is there a way to mount the iphone as a drive to use recovery tools to recover all the files including contacts? I might be lucky to find the files

 

[JamesMB]

No, he cant get the backup back, but he can get his contacts back, if they are still in the address book of his PC. Tell your dad to turn off auto syncing in iTunes, that is why the old backup got replaced.

 

[tamimi]

can I at lease mount my Iphone as a drive ....... I want to try to use recovery tools to recover the contacts

 

[JamesMB]

can I at lease mount my Iphone as a drive ....... I want to try to use recovery tools to recover the contacts

Are the contacts on the phone?

 

[tamimi]

No the aren't ...... thats why I'm looking for a way to mount the phone as disk and then use recovery tool to try to recover them ( If u delete anything on a drive ..... ur files are not really deleted..... so there are some apps called recovery apps that scans each sector of your disk and retrieve all deleted data long story...)

 

[JamesMB]

Yeah, I know all about data recovery software, and there are plenty of apps that will let you explore your iPhone as a disk; but if you deleted your contacts from the phone, and the computer, don't have a backup of your PC, or at the very least, your .PST file, the contacts are gone.

You said that you synced with the wrong computer, aren't they still on the "other" computer?

 

[Applejuiced]

Don't he have older backups of his iPhone on his computers iTunes.
There should be multiple backup files, just select an older one.

 

[Consultant]

Your story doesn't make sense.

iPhone can sync from iTunes backup and the original computer.

Even if iPhone is erased, iPhone can still sync from older iTunes backup and contacts.

Check iTunes, preferences, devices. What do you see?

 

[JamesMB]

Your story doesn't make sense.

iPhone can sync from iTunes backup and the original computer.

Even if iPhone is erased, iPhone can still sync from older iTunes backup and contacts.

Check iTunes, preferences, devices. What do you see?

I think that iTune now only stores one backup, (the most recent). At least, that's the way it is on the two machines that I have iTunes on. To get around what iTunes thinks that I need, I drag a copy of a backup to a separate folder every week or so.

 

[-aggie-]

I think that iTune now only stores one backup, (the most recent). At least, that's the way it is on the two machines that I have iTunes on. To get around what iTunes thinks that I need, I drag a copy of a backup to a separate folder every week or so.

You are correct. iTunes stopped doing incremental backups along time ago (at least a year).

 

[wacky4alanis]

iTunes is so poorly designed when it comes to backups. Doing automatic backups and only keeping the most recent backup is moronic. I'm sure they did it to make the backup process faster, but it also makes it VERY easy to mess up. Is there any option to tell iTunes to keep old backups? Or do we have to manually go into the backup directory and copy them ourselves?

 

[JamesMB]

Is there any option to tell iTunes to keep old backups?

No

Or do we have to manually go into the backup directory and copy them ourselves?

Unfortunately, yes...

 

[Applejuiced]

I think that iTune now only stores one backup, (the most recent). At least, that's the way it is on the two machines that I have iTunes on. To get around what iTunes thinks that I need, I drag a copy of a backup to a separate folder every week or so.

Damn, that sucks.
I just noticed that too.
It was nice where I had 3-4 backups from different dates available.
Now one wrong/buggie backup and all your stuff are overwritten.
Thanks for the info though.

 

[JamesMB]

Damn, that sucks.
I just noticed that too.
It was nice where I had 3-4 backups from different dates available.
Now one wrong/buggie backup and all your stuff are overwritten.
Thanks for the info though.

It's been that way for more than a year...I just made a separate folder, and keep a half dozen backups in there. It's a real PIA, and Apple could have avoided that with a simple option.

 

[Applejuiced]

It's been that way for more than a year...I just made a separate folder, and keep a half dozen backups in there. It's a real PIA, and Apple could have avoided that with a simple option.

Good idea, thanks.