Transfering iPhone data from Mac to PC

[jafa.and.proud]

Hello from New Zealand

Well after a long stressfull day, here is what I have achieved to mess up so far... It started with me wanting to do a software update on my iPhone 3G with my Powerbook G4 (always used the same laptop with the iPhone)

- iTunes could not recognise the iPhone was due for an update
- I manually downloaded update
- Did a full backup
- Set to factory restore in order to install the new software
- Factory restore begun, wiped everything off the phone, then...
- iTunes said it cannot upload the new software onto the phone as it has to be iTunes 10
- I downloaded iTunes 10
- Upon installing iTunes 10, it told me my OS is too old for iTunes 10 and must be updated to 10.5 or newer
- I went down the road and purchased 10.6 (the only one available to purchase)
- Laptop now says it does not support 10.6 and cannot install


So basically now I'm stuck with an iPhone that has nothing on it, a laptop that's now rendered useless (all I used it for really was my iPhone and internet), and a big glass window behind me that is about to be shattered as a laptop and phone gets thrown through it

I have now synced my phone to my PC so it is activated and I can use it at least



What I now need to know is how to get the backup files off my mac and onto my PC so I can sync then back to my iPhone

Also how to get my contacts which are synced to my mac, onto my PC for syncing to my phone


I have done a search around here a few times today but nothing directly answers my question

Any help at all would be great!!

 

[MagicBoy]

Moral of the story - check the system requirements when you buy an Operating System upgrade for your laptop.

 

[jafa.and.proud]

Yea I don't care about that, was only $60... The guy at Apple told me it would work on my laptop but they were out of stock so I bought it from another electronics store, so unfortunately there's no way I can return it. Ah well. That's not my problem anyway

 

[JamesMB]

There is a chance that the old backup didn't get overwritten and is still on the mac. Open iTunes prefs, click on the devices tab and check the date of the backup.

Since you did a backup before you tried to restore, and since the restore failed, there is a chance that the backup file did not get overwritten.
You can copy the backup file to a flash drive and then copy it to the correct folder on the PC, and attempt to do a restore from backup.

If you upgraded the iPhone software on the PC, there is a very good chance that it won't let you restore from the old backup, because that would be a downgrade. But, this would be simple to do and is certainly worth a shot. The backup file location for the mac is "User>Library>Application Support>Mobile Sync>Backup". For Windows "Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup"

If you are unable to do a restore from backup, we still may be able to salvage some of your data, it just depends on how it was synced.