Recovering Lost Photos after installing iOS5

Apple iOS5 is the newest iPhone operating system. This is a great operating system available to all iPhone users, new and old. But there are some upgrading problems. For example, a friend of mine upgraded only to find his photos missing. That is a pretty inconvenient problem and we'll be discussing a solution.

Apple patched some bugs with the not too recent iOS 5.0.1 update. However, as it turns out, the lost photo issue persists. We can only hope for a patch that will fix the problem soon.

Universal Advice

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) to make a backup. Before upgrading the operating system or software of any gadget that holds data, whether a tower computer, a laptop, a netbook or any other machine, you should make a data backup. This is very important because anything could go wrong and you may lose your important files. Sadly, you are reading this post because you forgot to make a backup of your iPhone data. Don't be too hard on yourself, there is a solution.

The Solution (For Computers Running on Windows)

Step 1 - First you need to download and install iExplorer. Fortunately, it is a free Windows utility. This utility lets you access your iDevice just as a flash drive does.

Step 2 - Fire up iExplorer and then connect your Apple device via USB to your computer. (Note: The machine must be running Windows.) The computer should immediately recognize the device and an iExplorer window will pop up.

Step 3 - On the Windows Explorer-like window, navigate to Media/DCIM/Apple### in order to view your pictures.

Step 4 - Copy and paste the photos to your desktop.

You are not quite finished yet. You will have to locate four files (listed below) and drag all the files to your desktop. After that, make sure you can open the files, on your desktop, before deleting them from iExplorer. The files you are to look for are:

/Media/PhotoData/PhotosAux.sqlite
/Media/PhotoData/MISC/DCIM_APPLE.plist
/Media/DCIM/.MISC/Info.plist
/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite

Remember to close iExplorer. Disconnect your USB cable and then restart the iPhone. To reboot your iPhone, hold down the Home and Power buttons at the same time until the Apple logo appears on the screen.

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-By Dominic

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