Soliciting advice before attempting restore from backup

I sent my iMac into the shop (Tekserve in NYC) to swap out the original HD for a more spacious SSD. Tekserve advised they could not transfer the data over to the new drive. I had upgraded the drive to Yosemite and did a Time Machine backup the night before sending the machine in. What are the recommended steps to follow to help ensure the restore process goes well?

Follow steps below.
OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system

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Backing up an iPad/iPhone and Restoring from Backup

To preface this post, I have always had Apple products and currently own an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro. I have also spent about 4 hours on the phone with Apple support staff and they recommended I make a post on the Apple Support Forums.
Basically, this is a warning that when you backup your iPad or iPhone, Apple only backups contacts, notes, photos, calendars, and mail.
According to the third representative I spoke to, Apple does not, I repeat DOES NOT, actually back up music and playlists in your iTunes on your devices or backup the apps you have on them.
I had to get my iPad replaced because the smart cover was corroding and I did a full backup before I brought my iPad in to the Apple store. When I tried to restore from backup, everything but my iTunes libraries and my apps reappeared. For most, the iTunes wouldn't matter, but I was using a newish computer and had not yet organized my music library, although I had transferred all the songs back from an external drive. The apps are always a pain, since you have to manually download all of the ones you want after going to your purchases in the iTunes store.
However, a helpful thing I did learn, despite the fact that all my music from my iPad was gone, was that you can restore old playlists by quitting iTunes and going to Finder > Home > Music > iTunes and selecting iTunes Music Library.xml and dragging it to the desktop. Then you open iTunes and click File > Library > Import Playlist and select iTunes Music Library.xml from your desktop.
Anyway, this is one of the first times I have been thoroughly fed up with Apple: if their policy is to not back up music or apps when a user clicks backup, then they need to make it clear. Before I restored from backup, those files appeared in my iTunes as if they existed, although according to my Apple representative, they never did.

All the information about what gets backed up is available from Apple. Here's the article explaining what is contained in iTunes backups (see "iTunes will back up the following information"):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946
Most people will not have the unfortunate coincidence that you had wherein you wanted to restore a backup because your iPad needed replacement and simultaneously had an issue with your computer that had been storing your music.
So although the iTunes backup does not contain your music, you could subscribe to iTunes Match as described here and get that music all stored in the iCloud for you.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4914
I hope this helps.

Trying to change ownership of my old iPod. The advice here is to go to "Devices" "Summary" "Restore", but I find "Devices" does not offer "Restore" but only "Sync", "Transfer", "Backup", and a greyed "Restore from backup."

Trying to change ownership of my old iPod. The advice here is to go to "Devices">"Summary">"Restore", but I find "Devices" does not offer "Restore" but only "Sync", "Transfer", "Backup", and a greyed "Restore from backup."

What I don't understand is that your iTunes looks different from mine--just a little bit. You have 3 circles, red, yellow, and green, in the upper right end of the top bar. INstead I have a square that is half gray. When I click it, I get a menu very similar to the menu under "File."
The only place I see an entry for "Devices" is under "File," but it only gives the 4 options I mentioned before (see below). There is no "Summary."
Here's another screen shot after I added an album to music. Now all the choices under "Devices" are grayed.

TS3992 Do I have to restore from backup before I upgrade

I backed up my iphone for the 1st time in the cloud in order to do a software upgrade and save what I have, however I do not know if I have to restore from
backup and have tried to do so but can't figure it out or maybe I don't have to do so. I am new to iphone.
Gerrie

To take the matter a little further while it's not required to backup it's foolish not to if you have information on your computer that you care about such as photos, music, financial records, personal information etc. MacWorld magazine from time to time runs articles on backup strategies. The easiest method is using Time Machine, here is a brief Time Machine Tutorial tutorial. Many others (including myself) will create a bootable clone which is an exact duplicate of the internal HD created on an external HD using software such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner as Dave mentioned. And other use redundant backups using different tools such as TM and a bootable clone. The reason why is backups can fail too.
I would recommend taking a little time and reading at least one of these MacWorld articles, they'll give you some ideas for backup strategies and I think you will see a common thread, that being redundant backups are wise.
Backup Plan I
Backup Plan II
Backup Plan III

Is it possible to retrieve a backup that is not available on the drop-down bar in iTunes "restore from backup"?

I was attempting to sync my phone so that I could get all of my pictures on the computer to free up some space on my phone. I have done this several times before with no problems. An error message popped up informing me that I needed to update my phone before I could sync my info. During the update, an error occured again so I tried to eject the device so that I could worry about it another day. After ejecting the phone, it kept showing on the display that it was still connected to itunes. I couldnt turn the phone off or anything, it was just frozen there. So, I hooked it back up to the computer and it prompted me to do an update on itunes to fix the problem. After updating itunes it said that i should restore the phone to it's original settings and then restore from backup. It performed a backup when I initially plugged the phone in the first time. After deleting everything off of my phone, I then attempted to restore from backup but got an error message saying that there was not enough free space on my device for me to restore my info...but I had just taken it off the phone. I stepped away from the computer for a moment and when I got back, it had performed another backup of my basically blank device. Now the only backups that I can pull up on itunes are from after everything was deleted from my phone. All of my information is gone. I know this doesn't really make any sense, but I have no idea how else to word it or how to fix it. PLEASE help! I have several pictures of my newborn son and pictures and videos of my husband's recovery process from a severe brain injury.

Under the PLAN screen, right click on the page you want to exclude from your menu list, navigate to Menu Options, and select Exclude Page From Menus.

ITunes only gives iPhone 5 the option to restore from backup or eject

I know this question has been asked in the past, and I have read many threads and articles on this question, but I still have not been able to find a way to backup my iPhone 5 (running iOS 6.1.2) to my computer without losing all the data on it.
Brief explanation of my problem.
I purchased an iPhone 5 new back in December 2012 Removed it from the box, powered it on and started entering my contacts from my old (non-smart) phone by hand. After done entering my contacts, I then proceeded to setup Messages, iTunes, the App store etc with the Apple ID of my wife's phone since we really don't have a need for separate Apple ID's.
All works fine with all our Apple iOS devices.
My problem lies with me not being able to plug my iPhone 5 into my computer and being able to make a backup to the computer. No matter what computer I plug the iPhone 5 into, I get the Welcome to Your New iPhone screen. If I right-click on the phone in the left hand column, my only options are Eject (or Restore from backup... if I plug the iPhone 5 into the same computer that my wife's iPhone has been backed up to) as seen in this image.
How do I get the phone to be recognized by my computer so I can do a backup to the computer like my wife's iPhone. I currently do NOT have a backup anywhere of my iPhone 5?
Is the only time you can associate an iOS device to a computer is when it is brand new before being used?
By comparison, I can plug my iPad 2 (running iOS 6.1.3) into any computer (be it the one it is synced and backed up to, or a completely different machine) and iTunes will show the device, ask to update the firmware if an update is needed, and allow me to see what is currently installed, drag and drop items to certain apps that allow it, see the breakdown at the bottom of the screen as to what percent of music, apps, pictures, etc are installed on it and such.
So, why can't I see my iPhone 5 in the same manner when I connect it to a computer?
Any and all advice greatly appreciated.
If any further info is needed, I will be glad to supply it.
Thanks in advance to all that respond.
- Dan

I would like to preface that I have NOT tried what I am about to post.
I came across this forum post that seems to answer the question I originally posted above.
The post is will itunes erase my iphone if I set it up as new?
Based on this post, it seems that if I create a new library using the hold Shift Key while starting ITunes and then selecting Create library, and then starting iTunes in this new library, when connecting my iphone I should be able to select the Setup as new and then based on the postings in the above link, give the phone a name and it should backup the phone without deleting anything from it.
Again, I have not tried this myself as I finally broke down and created a new user on my PC to do the backup. I came across this link after I had finished my backup.
Just thought someone might find this useful.
Dan

HT1766 i am trying to restore my iPad from a backup. I do not get the option of restoring from backup.... I only get restore to orginal settings?

I was attempting to update my ipad to the newest OS system and it crashed... I came back with it saying that it had an error and did not update. Now I only get the iTunes logo on the ipad witht he usb cord picture.
I have gone into iTunes & it says I have to do a restore. But it does not give me the RESTORE from Backup option. Only the Restore to Factory Settings. Is this normal?
Thank you for any help you can give me.
D

Marrtin S wrote:
Hi I am trying to restore my iphone from the itunes back and it is asking me for a password, I don't ever remember putting a password in. how do i get the password reset?
You can't get it reset; if you could there would be no point in having it. If you have an encrypted backup there are two ways this could have happened:
You checked "Encrypt Backup" in iTunes at some time in the past, either intentionally or by accident
You have a corporate MS Exchange account and your Exchange administrator installed a security profile on your phone that requires the phone'a contents to be encrypted. This, in turn, requires the backup to be encrypted for obvious reasons.
In either case you were prompted for a password the first time you backed up after whichever of these happened. So think about what you might have entered for a password at that time. Fortunately you get an unlimited number of tries. Other threads on this subject have shown that it is always a password known to the user, so it wasn't something made up by iTunes. Also, everyone who has figured it out has found it to be a different password type, so try your Apple ID password, your computer's login password, your WiFi password, your corporate domain password, etc. And try passwords that may have been changed since your first backup. As a last resort there is a professional password cracker available, but it isn't cheap - it's targeted at the law enforcement market - from Elcomsoft. There are also some scam password crackers available that don't actually work and possibly steal your information. It's likely that a developer of one or more of these will post a response with a link (possibly hidden) to their "product". So before clicking any links you might want to install the Web of Trust plugin that keeps track of scam sites and warns you. http://www.mywot.com.

HT201269 What happens when the old device's Restore From Backup doesn't appear as a choice for the new (iPad) device?

My wife dropped her iPad and fried the screen. It was still functional, so I backed it up with iTunes. The backup was successful for all apps, photos, etc. I just swapped that iPad at the Apple Store for a refurbished model and attempted to Restore From Backup. iTunes now doesn't see that old iPad so I can't restore the old data on the new device. Any help appreciated.

Here's an interesting bit: iTunes will let me restore my iPod touch from backup: it's still running iOS 4.3.3. I figured as much... there's backups showing in the Preferences -> Devices list for both devices (and even my old, long gone iPod touch 2G), but my iPhone (on iOS5) isn't giving me any such option. I remember I had to downgrade before to get the backup restored (something went haywire in the setup assistant, and I couldn't restore a backup from iTunes there)... If it was possible to go to iOS 5.0 rather than 5.0.1 I would just do the same thing again, but iOS 5.0.1 isn't an option. I attached a screenshot. Hopefully Apple can get this nonsense sorted out; I think iOS 5 might be the root of this, somehow.

How do I restore from backup on iPhone 4S?

I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 on Wednesday and last synced it with my Mac on Thursday night at 11:30pm before going to bed. I bought the iPhone 4S on Friday morning and started it as a new iPhone. I think that I did something wrong, because I never saw the option to "Restore From Backup" so that I could port over my last iPhone 4 with iOS 5 back up. Can someone tell me if/how I can do this? Maybe I need to restore my 4S and start over. Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks Bryan. Sorry to sound like such an idiot. The first time I tried that, but backup options didn't auto populate. I restored the 4S and followed your advice above. Worked like a charm.

How can I restore my iPhone 4's iOS5 backup without restoring iOS if the option to "Restore from Backup" doesn't appear when I right click it in the device list?

(Lengthy question, I know Let me explain.)
A few days ago, I decided to clear out the music on my computer. So, I copied everything out of iTunes to my external hard drive (podcasts, music, movies, tv shows, books, and apps) and deleted all that I could find, including the iTunes folder. I forgot that the iTunes library files were in there, and those went too; unsurprisingly, I was greeted with an empty library when I next opened iTunes. After adding all my files back from my external hard drive, everything's all good there - no lost files, everything seems fine. However, since my library is a "new" library, iTunes wishes to erase everything on my iPhone 4. Which is also fine, for everything except my apps. I'd really rather not lose all my application settings and data that are saved in my backup. But, I cannot just "Restore from Backup" by right-clicking my device in the list in iTunes, so... I haven't synced my iPhone since I did this, so all of my data is still on there, but it's in the backup as well. If I have to erase all iTunes content, I definitely have to be able to restore the backup over it since I don't want to lose all my settings and Springboard layout. I'd prefer not to restore iOS because I don't want to go from iOS5 to 5.0.1, nor do I have 8 hours to download the IPSW file on my super-speedy internet connection Any guidance on restoring my iPhone from its backup?

Here's an interesting bit: iTunes will let me restore my iPod touch from backup: it's still running iOS 4.3.3. I figured as much... there's backups showing in the Preferences -> Devices list for both devices (and even my old, long gone iPod touch 2G), but my iPhone (on iOS5) isn't giving me any such option. I remember I had to downgrade before to get the backup restored (something went haywire in the setup assistant, and I couldn't restore a backup from iTunes there)... If it was possible to go to iOS 5.0 rather than 5.0.1 I would just do the same thing again, but iOS 5.0.1 isn't an option. I attached a screenshot. Hopefully Apple can get this nonsense sorted out; I think iOS 5 might be the root of this, somehow.

Restore from backup or setup as new?

If I am having software problems should I restore and setup as new?
I really wanna save my camera roll etc, can I just restore from backup?

You can.
Software problem -factory restore- 100% fix
Software problem -restore from back up 30% fix
you can also save your camera roll before restore, that is what I would do.

I updated the software of my iPhone 4s, but now iTunes says my computer is synced with another device, even after I click "restore from backup."

I've selected the "restore from backup" button numerous times, but iTunes continues to give me the message, "This computer has previously been synced with another device." It then gives me the option to set up as a new phone or restore from backup. I want to put my music and apps back onto my phone! How can I get my computer to recognize my phone again?

I found this article some time ago when I was trying to help someone else in this same situation. This is a copy and paste from the website. The website is provided below for you to read before you try this.
Plug your phone into iTunes
Click setup as a new device
Immediately unplug your phone from the computer
Give it about 30 seconds and iTunes will give a message (I don’t remember the specific, but regarding you unplugging the device and it not completing)
Plug your phone back in
Viola! no restore occurred and you can access everything again
This computer has previously synced with an iPhone or another iOS device.

I cannot see my iPhone backup when I click on "restore from backup"

Hi there, I just upgraded my iPhone to iOS 5.1. Before I began I backed up my iPhone within iTunes. I checked that the backup was successful by checking the folder and files existed in "%AppData%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup" - which they did. After the upgrade which iTunes told me was successful I have my Contacts and Photos but have lost my ringtones, music and texts. I'm particularly bothered by losing my texts because I had historical texts from my Mum who has passed away recently. I went back into iTunes, right clicked on my device and selected "restore from backup" but in the list of backups it does not list my backup - just a really old one from my son's phone a number of months ago.
Can anyone help with this? Is there a way to tell iTunes that the backup exists and to point it there? (sorry, I'm a Windows user only)
Also, another issue while I'm here and may be related (not sure). I'm unable to synch my phone with iTunes as it says it's already synched with another computer (which it was but it died a horrible death and has since left this world). So currently the only way I can update music, ringtones etc is through a 3rd party free app called Copy TransManager. Anyone know a way out of that problem?
This Kiwi would appreciated any wisdom, assistance, help you can offer on these two points. In order of priority ... I can manage with the non-sync weirdness as I've found a work around .... getting my backup to work so I can get my texts is of upmost importance to me. Thank you.

Hello, JG257.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
If you are unable to import photos from your device, try the troubleshooting steps in the article below.
iOS: Unable to import photos to computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3195
Cheers,
Jason H.

How can I see my messages after restoring from backup?

I have 2.1gb of messages saved in my storage on my 4s but they're not in messages after restoring from backup.
How can I get all my messages back in my message app because I know they're their it's just a matter of getting them restored into the app.

When you restored your phone from an old backup, it wiped ALL data from your phone and replaced it with the data from that backup. It's like your phone went back in time.
Your data that was on the phone before you did the restore is now gone forever. There is no way to get these data back.

Why am getting a "error occurred while restoring from backup" message when restoring using Time Machine?

Hello
I recently made a Bootcamp partition with Windows 7 (which incidentally went absolutely fine). In that partition I wanted to split it for some certain files, but on doing so I appear to have completely tanked my hard drive - I've pretty much wiped the entire thing. I read afterwards that creating new partitions within Windows is a big no no Bootcamp wise, and this wasn't something I knew about before. Lesson learnt!
Either way, I had a backup and though it would be simple enough to restore from that backup, but about 2% in it it pops up "an error has occurred while restoring from backup, please restart and try again". After a few tries, this didn't work, so now I'm worried that my backup is corrupt.
I'm not sure why the backup would be corrupt as this was made with no problems as normal.
I've already tried the standard restore with no success (obviously), and I've also tried re-installing the OS up to the first boot, then trying to restore (thinking that the error was a result of a missing Recovery HD, which the re-install would create) and this was with no success also.
My final idea was to just erase the drive and re-install the OSX, and then when it prompts me, restore the files from the Time Capsule.
Am I onto the right idea, or is there another way around this? I'm just very worried that my backup has become corrupted for some reason and I've lost everything on there.
Specs are:
MacBook Pro Mid 2012 OS X 10.8.5;
Bootcamp 5 (Windows 7);

I'd agree. As long as you've gone this far, I'd probably start from scratch with your MBP, back up any critical files on it, wipe the whole thing, and do a nice clean reinstall.
I'd try to repair the backup drive with disk utilty and then see if you can restore the minimum of essential documents from it to the MBP. If Disk Utility can't fix it there is a small chance that a third party utility like diskwarrior or techtool could repair it. DiskWarrior 4 - The Disk Utility for Mac Disk Repair, Mac Directory Repair, Mac Disk Recovery, Mac Data Recovery or Techtool Pro 7
If you can get your essential documents off the backup drive, then I'd wipe it and put a new time machine backup on it. If that doesn't work, then I'd replace the drive.

Soliciting advice before attempting restore from backup

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