I was able to restore 1,200 photos for someone today, from an iPhone that wasn’t booting, and was deemed a lost cause by the genius bar at Apple.
ok, I’ll quickly bow - though that wasn’t the point of my note here… but, to once again push my family and friends towards routine backups. I knew this person was bugging, since he would normally ask me to avoid wasting my time on a task that may seem out of reach, but this time he gave me that look. It was the look when someone knows they fucked up, and just realized the stakes. In this case, most of those photos were of his beautiful baby daughter. And, I didn’t have to remind him that all he had to do was sync the device with his computer, a one touch action within iPhoto. He kept stating how much he regretted not doing so, and I know that feeling boy, it’s a shitty one..
but, here’s the thing.. once you’re synchronized with your computer, and you delete the originals to free up space on the device, the photos and other important data is then the sole copy. It’s at this point that you need to consider your primary backup, that will scoop up everything on your computer, your music, documents, spreadsheets… and will include - all the photos, notes, and contacts that you just uploaded to your computer from your iPhone, Blackberry, or other device.
It hasn’t been all that long since my last article about backing up and the hardware you can use to do it. I will write another as soon as technology has evolved enough, though for now, read this when you get a chance, and please - backup your files on a regular basis.