iTunes trashed my phone!

[Dee Ann]

HELP!!

OMG... I haven't plugged my phone into my computer in months.

It is running the 3.1.2 I think.
It's a first generation 2.0 kind, one of the very first ones to come out.

I had it jail broken and unlocked to use on my carrier which is Centennial.
Centennial was recently bought and taken over by ATT but the signal still says I'm on Centennial but I pay my bill now to ATT.

The problem is that a few months ago Cydia just quit working. I can not load Cydia at all, period. It starts then instantly dies out.

Not the end of the world.

But I have some photos in it I can't lose. They are really important to me.
So I plugged my iphone into my pc to copy the pictures out into the pc.
Windows refused to see the phone at all. I could not at all access the photos anymore by pc. I have been able to do that as recently as a few weeks ago on a different pc which also will no longer see the iphone picture folder.

So I thought I would plug it into itunes and get them out of the phone that way.

First thing it did was tell me there is an update to 3.1.3 and asked it I wanted to install it. I said NO....

Then it said it found a bunch of unauthorized apps on the phone and went about erasing them from the phone. Boom. Gone.

Now I can't get my pictures out of it and it erased a bunch of stuff I needed.

OMFG...... I just checked and it totally erased all my photos! SH*T!!

OK. Now all I have left is I need to get my contacts out of it so I can put them back in.

I assume I will have to go through the jailbrake all over again and it will be wiped totally clean.

I'm very, very upset now.

How can I salvage my phone? My precious, irreplaceable photos have been wiped out and most of my apps. I can't deal with this. I'm f**king pissed off beyond belief. I could not lose those photos.

How can I get my contacts from the stupid thing so I can just start it over new?

I could choke Steve Jobs till he turned purple. Itunes is such a piece of GARBAGE...

Please help!??? I'm so freaking upset that I can't even think right now.

 

[Revelation78]

What are you so mad about? Everything you have said so far boils down to your actions or lack there of.

I'm also not really believing everything you typed in your post. iTunes will not delete ANYTHING off of your iPhone unless you synced it with iTunes. If you chose to sync with iTunes, then again, it's your actions that led to any "unauthorized" apps being deleted - not an error with iTunes.

Apple does not claim any warranty of iTunes or the iPhone working if you are jailbroken - again your actions.

You chose to jailbreak, you chose to use "unauthorized" apps, you chose to wait so long in between backups - thus your actions and the lack there of.

If anything you should be upset with yourself, not with iTunes.

 

[upaymeifixit]

For future reference, try to backup your phone as often as possible.

As for now, it sounds like it wiped your photos, and your "unauthorized" (cracked?) apps. iTunes should not have done this unless it synced it. So you still have your other apps and personal info on there? I don't know why it would have wiped the photos, I would double check that one.

So assuming your contacts are still on there can you just sync the phone with iTunes and tell it to sync the contacts? I believe that option is under "Summary" but I'm not sure.

Are you sure you want to "Start Fresh" with this phone? Just before you do, make sure you back up the phone to iTunes and then Jailbreak/Restore.

Sorry about your loss, I know how you feel, it's like NOTHING works. I would just take a break from it for a day and then do it. Good luck.

 

[Dee Ann]

For future reference, try to backup your phone as often as possible.

As for now, it sounds like it wiped your photos, and your "unauthorized" (cracked?) apps. iTunes should not have done this unless it synced it. So you still have your other apps and personal info on there? I don't know why it would have wiped the photos, I would double check that one.

So assuming your contacts are still on there can you just sync the phone with iTunes and tell it to sync the contacts? I believe that option is under "Summary" but I'm not sure.

Are you sure you want to "Start Fresh" with this phone? Just before you do, make sure you back up the phone to iTunes and then Jailbreak/Restore.

Sorry about your loss, I know how you feel, it's like NOTHING works. I would just take a break from it for a day and then do it. Good luck.

I think it did say it was syncing. But I always uncheck that because it just tries to sync stuff FROM the pc into the iphone, there's no option to sync it into the pc. And I do not use the pc for email or anything else so there's no adress books on it or anything like that.

So I just uncheck all the options. I did not tell the stupid thing to sync. I always try to prevent it from doing that.

As for now, it's totally screwed up. There's nothing left in it now except my contacts. I have to save them somehow. Then I just want to start it over clean. The cydia was broken and some other things were acting broken too so I think it's best to start over. I do not have the skills to fix problems on this thing. Last time I did the blankrain thing and it made everything work fine. Though it did wipe it clean out in the process.

I'm just furious about it wiping all my photos out. I can't go back in time and re-take them. Those are lost.

And of course there's the problem of the pc's ignoring it when I plug it into anything. Previously I could plug it into any pc and copy the photos into the pc with a few mouse clicks. I never needed itunes and avoid it like the plauge because I hate it with all my heart. Every time I run Itunes it does something very bad to my phone.

The phone was a gift to me from my son. I have been a Centennial Wireless customer for years and years because they had a great plan that served me very, very well. Their service has been exceptional. The reception is always A1 where ever I go. I have NO complaints.

BUT, ATT just bought them out and has taken them over. My money now goes to those evil jerks. Their service is horrible and I have nothing but bad things to say about ATT.

My phone was jailbroken and unlocked so I could use it on Centennial.
Apparently either ATT and or Apple did something to screw my phone up when I plugged it into itunes because ever since ATT took over my phone has been acting up, worse and worse. Apps breaking and such.

Then I couldn't even access Cydia anymore to try to fix the broken apps.

All I wanted was to get my photos out of it tonight and it wouldn't even let me do that. That failing, I tried itunes. Itunes made matters even worse. Far worse.

Now I just want to wipe it clean, install a fresh unlock and jailbrake and update it to the new version and somehow save my contacts list. I need that. Everything else that I valued in there, is gone now.

Once I get this thing fixed again I swear, I am deleting itunes forever and I will never, ever run itunes ever again for any reason. I hate that garbage with all my heart and soul. That is the most useless program on earth.

"Our way or the highway." is the Apple way. Bunch of nazis...

So can someone please recommend a procedure for me to get my contacts out of this thing? I really would like to smack it with a hammer about now but I know better. But oh how I'm tempted...

thanks..

Oh, and I almost forgot, I don't know if this matters but I'm using windows 7..

 

[-aggie-]

Seriously tl;dr twice.

You didn't backup your contacts to iTunes.

You didn't sync your contacts thru iTunes to Outlook or Address Book.

Consider this as a lesson learned, I guess. If you're not going to backup at least have a sync to fall back on.

 

[Dee Ann]

Seriously tl;dr twice.

You didn't backup your contacts to iTunes.

You didn't sync your contacts thru iTunes to Outlook or Address Book.

Consider this as a lesson learned, I guess. If you're not going to backup at least have a sync to fall back on.

There isn't anything about copying things FROM the phone into the pc!
Everything says it will replace the stuff on the phone with stuff from the pc!
I don't use the pc for email or anything like that!

I want get copies off of the phone, from it, into the pc to keep so that I can fix things if it ever messes up again.

This stupid itunes is destructive! Everytime I start it it has all sorts of things check marked. I uncheck them and click ok or apply or whatever it says. Then the next time I run it, everything is all check marked again!

That's probably what wiped out my photos! It tried to copy from the pc and there was nothing so it just erased them all.

Itunes is STUPID!

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Itunes is STUPID!

Considering I can barely understand your babbling I don't think it's iTunes that's the stupid one.

Also, I was unaware that iTunes deletes unauthorized apps. Has anyone else ever heard of this?

 

[Dee Ann]

Considering I can barely understand your babbling I don't think it's iTunes that's the stupid one.

Also, I was unaware that iTunes deletes unauthorized apps. Has anyone else ever heard of this?

well it sure said it was doing so and things disappeared from it.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

There's no way to recover your photos and your phone seems to be messed up. Best thing to do is restore to an old firmware and jailbreak again.

 

[upaymeifixit]

First of all, iTunes did not do any thing wrong from what it sounds like. It sounds like you don't really know what yur talking about here (no offense). Here is what I'm guessing happend. You had your iPhone synced with another computer, and when iTunes tried to sync the iPhones, it gave you a warning that it would have to erase and sync. You didn't read it, and stopped the sync before it got to your contacts. That would be why it still won't let you sync. As for your other problems with your computer not recognizing the phone, I'm not one to bash on windows, but... Yeah. AT&T is not the cause of any of your
problems.

Believe it or not, getting rid of iTunes and not syncing may only cause the problem to occurs again.

As for getting your contacts off, you could sync it with google contacts, and then google contacts with your PC. Good luck.

 

[instaxgirl]

Then it said it found a bunch of unauthorized apps on the phone and went about erasing them from the phone. Boom. Gone.

This is kind of making me doubt your story, I've never heard of iTunes doing this.

Of course, if some other members want to come and correct me then that's fine but I've never heard of iTunes wiping apps for being "unauthorized"

Apparently either ATT and or Apple did something to screw my phone up when I plugged it into itunes because ever since ATT took over my phone has been acting up, worse and worse. Apps breaking and such.

Yeah, so Apple don't like jailbreak but there's never been any reports of them disabling phones or whatever, it just doesn't happen.

There isn't anything about copying things FROM the phone into the pc!
Everything says it will replace the stuff on the phone with stuff from the pc!
. . .
Itunes is STUPID!

I don't want to be too harsh, but iTunes while not perfect is not as flawed as you think. You simply don't seem to understand it.

The entire point is that you keep email, contacts etc on the computer and sync them to your phone. Once this is set up if you add new contacts on the phone or change a contact on the phone it will be synced back to the pc and vice versa.

Something's gone wrong here and tbh I think there's a good deal of human error. Unlock your phone again by all means but maybe leave Cydia alone, concentrate on understanding the official software and how it works.

Apple has plenty of iTunes 101 support pages and videos and so on.

And a tip for the future, you can email photos off your phone if your computer stops letting you copy them off.

 

[scirica]

What a mess. I can't believe you weren't more current with backups and/or syncing if those items on your phone were so precious to you...

Live and learn...