Hi, I'm considering updating the software on my iPhone 3g to 4.0. But I would like to know if doing this deletes your text message conversations and/or your photos?
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updating to iOS 4.0
- Thread starter NjlxMDk
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It shouldn't delete anything. If should do a backup, upgrade, restore.
I say "should" because for some reason my backup was faulty and it couldn't restore. It would get about 15% done on the restore, then error out, reboot, re-start the restore process and repeat. I had to put it in DFU mode and restore to factory conditions. I tired to restore from a backup I made at home the same morning and had the exact same issue. I suspect that there was something flaky on my phone that got backed up and prevented the restore from working.
So I lost text messages, contact, notes, game saves, etc. Fortunately I'm a programmer and was able to get it all back, but it wasn't pretty. I used iPhone Backup Extractor to pull the SQLite databases from my backup for Contacts. Then I used the SQLite Manager add-on for Firefox to run SQL queries to pull out all the contact information I was interested in. Then I saved those results to an Excel Workbook. Then I saved each sheet in the workbook as a CSV file. Then I wrote a custom program to read the CSV files and reconstitute the data from the various tables back into a single contact for each person. Then I wrote those out as VCard files. Emailed them to my phone and clicked on each one (100 contacts), clicked Create New Contact, Save, repeat for all 100. I didn't mess with trying to put the photos I had into the VCard files and re-assigned those back manually. The only things I had issues with were anniversaries and notes. Those didn't go in the VCard files and had to be put back manually. And I had some birthdays to correct. I couldn't find a way in SQL to pull the dates accurately. Most were fine but some were off by a day or two. I played around for a while, but eventually just fixed the few that were off manually.
So, you shouldn't lose anything. But that's not a guarantee! 😀
I say "should" because for some reason my backup was faulty and it couldn't restore. It would get about 15% done on the restore, then error out, reboot, re-start the restore process and repeat. I had to put it in DFU mode and restore to factory conditions. I tired to restore from a backup I made at home the same morning and had the exact same issue. I suspect that there was something flaky on my phone that got backed up and prevented the restore from working.
So I lost text messages, contact, notes, game saves, etc. Fortunately I'm a programmer and was able to get it all back, but it wasn't pretty. I used iPhone Backup Extractor to pull the SQLite databases from my backup for Contacts. Then I used the SQLite Manager add-on for Firefox to run SQL queries to pull out all the contact information I was interested in. Then I saved those results to an Excel Workbook. Then I saved each sheet in the workbook as a CSV file. Then I wrote a custom program to read the CSV files and reconstitute the data from the various tables back into a single contact for each person. Then I wrote those out as VCard files. Emailed them to my phone and clicked on each one (100 contacts), clicked Create New Contact, Save, repeat for all 100. I didn't mess with trying to put the photos I had into the VCard files and re-assigned those back manually. The only things I had issues with were anniversaries and notes. Those didn't go in the VCard files and had to be put back manually. And I had some birthdays to correct. I couldn't find a way in SQL to pull the dates accurately. Most were fine but some were off by a day or two. I played around for a while, but eventually just fixed the few that were off manually.
So, you shouldn't lose anything. But that's not a guarantee! 😀
Thanks for the reply - so would you recommend I update it or not? I'm quite partial to my messages and photos 😀
And if I do upgrade, could I sync before the update then if anything goes wrong sync again after I've done it/restored it.
And if I do upgrade, could I sync before the update then if anything goes wrong sync again after I've done it/restored it.
iRach
macrumors member
I updated and lost nothing, emails, photos, texts etc were still there, I did back up the phone on the Mac, just incase.
I have had no problems with the phone after, it has been just brilliant. Just note though that some apps might not work as they haven't been updated to run on OS4 yet.
I have had no problems with the phone after, it has been just brilliant. Just note though that some apps might not work as they haven't been updated to run on OS4 yet.