how to completely backup iPhone 3G

[tonyvr4]

Because of the frequent crashes with jailbreaking 4.2.1 on my iPhone 3G I had to restore using TinyUmbrella to iOS 4.1

The only problem is that I lost all my music, playlists, and most of the app data. iTunes restored my apps but I could not restore anything else because it kepy telling me that I had to update to the latest iOS first.

Is there any way to successfully backup my iPhone that is OS independant in case of an emergency like this?

Thanks

[iYeow]

As long as you don't downgrade your firmware, you should be able to setup as a backup restore. Apple does not want you to downgrade your firmware.

[tonyvr4]

That is the problem. I downgraded my software due to the frequent crashes and iTunes will not allow me to restore anything because of that

[iYeow]

There is another way but it involves changing the contents in ipsw.

Used to be able to do it on 3.1.3 but not sure it applies on ios 4.xx anymore.

Here :

[HOW TO] Fix error "Cannot restore iphone.....software too old" after downgrade

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Hey guys,

Have seen many a post about this and one obscure answer in piglatin, so i thought i'd make a nice big post for all you modmyi'ers and googlers...

I recently downgraded from 4.0 to 3.1.3 and reJBd using spirit (as i couldnt find any other way to do it *sadface*)

I discovered that restoring from a backup was not possible due to the software being too old on my iphone.

so here is the answer....

1. Navigate to your itunes iphone backup folder (WIN7- C > USERS > "ME" > APPDATA > ROAMING > APPLECOMPUTER > MOBILESYNC > BACKUP ***some of these folders may be hidden btw)

2. Find the most recent backup, this reflects the backup in itunes with no date (for me it's "Darkness" without any dates next to it in itunes, and most recently modified in the backup folder)

3. Theres a bunch of strings/files here, scroll down to info.plist

4. Open it in notepad

5. Near the begining, fined these two strings...


<key>Product Version</key> <string>4.0</string>

<key>Build Version</key> <string>8A306</string>


--The value after the versions will differ depending on what version you were last on when you backup up, I'm assuming it was 4.0, though this method should work retrospectively and for future updates.


6. Now change these values to reflect your current setup e.g.

<key>Product Version</key> <string>3.1.3</string>

<key>Build Version</key> <string>7E18</string>

7. If itunes was open, it will still not recognis the backup, so restart itunes.

8. Backup should work fine now!

(I did get an error saying itunes couldnt speak with my phone, but unplugged my phone and plugged it back in and all good. This is probably just my system)



Hope this clears the air for people.

Cheers...


(p.s. can anyone link me to a reliable 3.1.3 JB, not spirit, and new bootrom, as i've downgraded? 3 hours and 4 programs later i cracked it and just used spirit, but would prefer something i can JB to 4.0 with. Have blobs btw)

[tonyvr4]

Does iTunes only keep a certain number of backups?

For some reason, the only backups that appear are from four months ago.

I thought that I backed it up more recently than that

Tony

[iYeow]

You can check in itunes > edit > preference > devices > it will back up on the device name and overites the old ones with the latest.

[tonyvr4]

Very strange. It only lists the few backups. There is nothing between September and yesterday.

Could it be that iTunes only keeps 4 backups?

I was able to restore my critical app data, due to the apps backup by email function.

But I did loose my playlists and music

I looked again at the backups and the dates are weird. There is the backup I did today and yesterday but the other two backups listed are from 1979 and 1980. I didn't even have this phone back then.

I had to yet again, finaggle restoring my two most important apps data, and then had to restore the safari bookmarks.

Isn't there any way to completely backup/restore the phone data outside of iTunes so that I don't need to go through this again?