Need OS update but old Itunes/pc is dead

Question

I hope I haven't hijacked another thread..I did have a quick look. I have an iphone 3G and desperately need to upgrade from 3.12 to 4.1. My old PC and original Itunes are long gone (the great crash of 09)and I now use my Wifes laptop. It has Itunes sync'd with her Iphone, however It keeps telling me that If I upgrade to 4.0 or newer it will wipe all files from my phone. I can't sync with wifes laptop as I will lose 14GB of music on my phone and a lot of Apps as well...How do I get an OS upgrade and retain my information? The phone really needs it as it is getting quite glitchy..
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If I were in your shoes, this is what I'd do:
First, create another user account on your wife's computer with admin. privileges, for your use. Then:
By design, the iphone will sync itunes content with one computer at a time. Any attempt to sync such content with a second computer will result in ALL itunes content being first erased from your phone & then replaced with the content from the second computer. This is a design feature and cannot be overridden. The itunes content sync is one way: computer to phone. If you have photos that were synced to your phone or music ripped on your own that were not backed up, you will first have to extract them from your phone using third party software, before you do anything else:
http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/index.php
Once you've done that, do the following in the order specified:
1. Disable auto sync when an ipod/iphone is connected under preferences in itunes(under the edit menu in Windows).
2. Make sure you have one contact & one event in Outlook or Windows Address Book or whatever supported applications you use. The entries can be fake, doesn't matter, the important point is that these programs not be empty.
3. Connect your phone, itunes running, NO NOT SYNC or UPDATE at this point.
4. Store>Authorize this computer.
5. File>Transfer Purchases(To make sure all purchased content on your phone will be in your itunes library).
6. Right click in the device pane & select reset warnings.
7. Right click again and select backup.
8. Right click again & select restore from backup, select the backup you just made. When prompted to create another backup, decline. This process of restoring from backup will also update your phone to iOS 4.1.
9. This MUST be followed by a sync to restore your itunes content, which you select from the various tabs, You'll get a popup regarding your contacts & calendars asking to merge or replace, select merge.
You should be good to go, and if something were to go wrong, your data & content are now on your computer & can be easily restored back to your phone.