A friend of mine asked me this question as she needs to format her computer and got her iPhone backup as well as her parents’ iPhone backups stored on her Vista machine.
If I’m not completely wrong those backups are stored under C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\AppleComputer\MobileSync\Backup. So when she sets up her new iTunes on her formatted computer would she just replace these files to the default folder or is there any other way to do this?
Also I read something about authorizing her new library with her Apple-ID and then it would just ask you if you want to merge the information stored on the iPhone(s) with the info of iTunes.
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Flo
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How to move current iPhone backup to new/formatted computer
Comments: 4 Responses to “How to move current iPhone backup to new/formatted computer”
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I'm not sure where they are stored on a Windows machine. Did you try that location? If they are there, then I guess they are there :)
But usually you wouldn't bother with this. You would just move all of your data (music) from one machine to another and then re-sync your iPhone with the new Mac. It would begin backing up there. Then you could forget about the old backups on the old machine.
This will all change soon, of course, with iOS 5 and iCloud. It will be much easier to re-sync with another Mac since your data (contacts, calendar, music, etc) would be connected in iCloud.
I couldn't check the location as I don't have my friends PC around and I would NEVER install Vista on any of my Windows machines but a Google research spit out the path above.
I now simply told her to copy the entire iTunes folder containing media and library just in case.
The thing is, that she's actually thinking about buying a Mac. Will the old library file work with a Mac to and if not, can you sync your iOS Device with it if you just drag the media into the new Mac library or will it tell you that it's not working with this library and you'd have to erase all the info on the iPhone before syncing again?
To move from Windows to Mac, simply use the Migration Assistant. I believe it works to go from Windows to Mac now. But if you just want the media from iTunes (music) then just copy those media files (not the whole library) over and drag and drop that into iTunes to form a new library with that media.
If your friend purchases the Mac from the Apple Store, they will migrate her data from Windows to the new Mac for free. Have her ask about that.
Alright, thanks a lot, I will tell her.
The problem about the Apple Store is, that we don't have not even one of them here. Probably we're just too small to be of interest for Apple...