Photo album loss

[Joao Fugas]

I have a iPad mini 64 Gb that is 2 years old and made the IOS 9.2 upgrade, it became much slower. I made immediately a backup using iTunes, I use windows 7, latter introduced another album and made de sincronization, the system was not able to backup, but the album was inserted. I tryed again no have a backup, but got an information that the iPad was disconnecting and no backup was possible. I made a shut down of the iPad using both buttons and later disconnected the ipad and when trying again, the same message appeared. Then I made something I already tried successfully with another Ipad on a different IOS and removed the Lockdown file as indicated by Apple on this kind of backup problems and tryed everything again. Then I got a big problem because although I still have all my Photos that I can see on the time part of Photos, all the album classification was lost and I do not know how to recover them. I tryed to do a restauration of my ipad using my last backup, but I receive a message that it is not possible because the ipad disconnects. What have I made wrong and Please tell me what to do to recover my Photo albums. Kind regards

 

[Deleted member 247820]

Have you tried connecting you iPad to the Windows PC via the USB cable, thus enabling you to see the iPad as a drive in Windows Explorer? This where you can see and copy any photos.

 

[Joao Fugas]

Thanks Peter I have no problem with my photos, they are saved on an external backup disk that I use to sinc through iTunes with my iPad, my problem is that I lost the classification of my albums on the iPad itself, after I made my last upgrade to IOS 9.2, and introduced a last album, I have around 32.000 pictures in many different albuns that I classified on my external backup disk and transfered to the iPad trough iTunes without any problem, but something went wrong when after this last album I inserted and on the sinc process I was supposed to have a backup t of my iPad, that did not occur and I tryed to have it again, but suddenly I was not able so do the back up, the information received as I explained was that the iPad was loosing contact with the iTunes on the backup process, I could not detect any malfunctioning of the equipment...and after doing all the steps I previously explained although I still have my photos on the iPad, they can be seen on the Time Photo log, on my album photo log they simply disappeared...which is very annoying, because this is a very convenient way to consult my photos... I tryed to do a restoration of my iPad, using my very recent last backup, to recover my organization that I appreciate, but not even that I am able to do, because now I always receive a message that the iPad disconnects during the process and the restoration is not possible. Becaause its Christmas shops are now closed, but I intend to go to an apple shop and try to undestrand from them what went wrong, and how to recover, unless somebody can give me an idea of what to do. Thanks for your kind help
regards

 

[J. A.]

Try resetting your iPad: press and hold Home and Power button simultaneously until you see the Apple logo. Let go of both, your iPad will power up on it's own. While this procedure won't change settings or remove data, it might help with your problem.

Make sure iTunes and your computer are up to date.

Unplug every other USB device from your computer, except for the iPad and the mouse (and perhaps the keyboard, if it's not a notebook), and try restoring again.

Disable or uninstall your security software for just as long as you need for restoring your iPad from the last backup, and try restoring once more.

 

[Deleted member 247820]

Hello Joao.
I understand your problem a bit better now.
You seem to be a victum of circumstances, that is you have a problem that nobody else probably has.
May I just add to what JA has written, it may be worthwile to try a new cable as you seem to have intermittant failing connection.
Also do you have access to another PC or Mac, give that a try.
You should be able to copy your backup file to another PC.
BTW I'm in awe of your 32000 pics! And can understand why classification is important.
I hope that your efforts to get a backup done have not rendered the backup file useless.
Have you looked on the PC to see if the backup file is actually there?

 

[Joao Fugas]

First Thanks to J.A.
I made all the information you have sent me , just after my first unsucessful try...
Thanks again Peter
I checked on my iTunes Preference equipment, sorry if the terms are incorrect, I am from Portugal and I use the portuguese version of iTunes, and the backup I made when I upgraded the system to version 9.2 is still referenced there, i hope that all the other tries were not affecting that basic bakup, otherwise I am much worst than I thought...
By the way on this same iTunes I have made successful recent backups from other Apple equipments I have, an Iphone 6, an Iphone 4s and an IPad 2, in the last couple of hours, without any problem, all run on IOS 9.2, the only issue I have is with my Wife´s Ipad mini and she is really sorry for this issue and I feel very unhappy about it also, all the ather backups have their backup updates registered at the time they were made and the Ipad mini is the only "old" one kept idle up to now even after the atempts I referred before.
I have another album with Christmas photos, do you think I coud try to insert it on the iPad mini, to see if it will enter into the photo time log and I may have a God help and the previous album classification will be set up again... do you think it deserves a try?
thanks again

 

[Joao Fugas]

Before all, Merry Chritmas and a Happy new Year to you all and thanks again for your so kind help

 

[Joao Fugas]

Dear Peter
I Just Checked that my "old" mini iPad backup is still in my iTunes log b92e6b16b6a48eb1e0c38fe2a000499dc51a0300… 12-12-2015 23:09, so I believe I will be able to recover my machine, if I make a full recover, although I was surprised with the size of the file 4,80 GB (5.163.393.024 bytes), 99.808 files..., perhaps it is ok, I am not at all experienced with this issue... some more information for you ...
kind regards

 

[Deleted member 247820]

Hi Joao.
As you are about to try something that may or may not work what I would do is save and move your good backup file to a remote place.
Thus the spot where your backup file was is now empty.
Now make a fresh backup file in the correct empty place.
This backup file may or may not have faults in it, but better to keep it just in case. So you now have two backup files, hopefully one will be OK.
So if you are calm enough (I may not be very calm) you can now try to insert into the iPad 2 the Christmas photo files.
BTW I do not backup to iTunes, I use iTunes to backup to a PC.
Is that what you do?
Sorry I cannot solve the problem for you, I think if I were faced with your issues and got nowhere then I would contemplate a factory reset.

 

[Joao Fugas]

Hi Peter
Thanks a lot for your help. I am doing the saving of my good backup file to an external drive, but I am afraid that mooving it will ceate a confusion on the iTunes setting and it will later not recognise my mini ipad, or am I saying something stupid?... i was wondering to do this copy, that I could always send back to the same place where it was before if I have a problem, and do another try on my backup using again the external disk where I have my Photo log that is now incremented by this Christmas new file and see if it works. If nothing happens and no new backup is done, by the way I noticed that on the same log iTunes spot are 2 files with the same numbering as my good one and the dates when I have done the try expained before, but with some extra numbers afyer the basic file number of the good file, which i believe was the aborted try the system registered because the time is the exact time and because the size of both files is very small compared with the good one, what do you think about this? I may be blessed with this try...
What do you think if a new upgrade comes on stream, should I do the upagrade and hope that this silly thing will be sorted out by the system itself or is it a wrong moove? I always, as you suggest, can contemplate a factory reset and use my photo backup to insert all the photos again, it will take ages, but it is better than now...
thanks again for your so kind support
regards

 

[Deleted member 247820]

Hi Joao.
For you it is probably worth to wait for a new update seeing you have a huge task to reinstall your pics the way you want.
There are other people on this site with lots more knowledge than me to advise about that.
I don't know if updates can remove replace corrupt files.
However for you it looks more and more like a factory restore is the only way to be sure.
If you go that way, then look for an app that you can use to store/retrieve your pics in a safer manner, I mean a more friendly app.
I use the Camera Roll in iPad it is OK for general use, but "IT" is in charge and not very flexible, for you and your 32000 pics you probably need something better.

 

[Joao Fugas]

Hi Joao.
For you it is probably worth to wait for a new update seeing you have a huge task to reinstall your pics the way you want.
There are other people on this site with lots more knowledge than me to advise about that.
I don't know if updates can remove replace corrupt files.
However for you it looks more and more like a factory restore is the only way to be sure.
If you go that way, then look for an app that you can use to store/retrieve your pics in a safer manner, I mean a more friendly app.
I use the Camera Roll in iPad it is OK for general use, but "IT" is in charge and not very flexible, for you and your 32000 pics you probably need something better.

Hi Peter
Once more Thanks a lot for your constant help. I will then wait for the next update and give it a try, I have nothing to loose. I still have all my photos save guarded in two different backup disks and am able to see the photos trough my PC anytime, the anoying thing is that my wife uses the iPad mini above all to be able to carry with her all the photos she likes, and now with this strange thing she has much more difficulty to see a particular album, or photo, because she has to go to the time log, where all the photos are still in, and remember when was that event and so on..., very disturbing and annoying, we bought this ipad for that purpose and now she cannot use it as she was used and she wanted... Anyhow thanks a lot for your pacience and important help
Kind regads Joao

 

[Deleted member 247820]

Hi Joao.
I hope it all works out well for you.
Nice "talking" to you.

 

[Joao Fugas]

Dear Peter
I decided during the weekend to follow your advise and go for a factory reset. It took me many hours and a very complicated process, that I will describe because it can be interesting for somebody with this type of problem… when I loaded again the iPad with my last backup I had to load also from my outside picture backups all the photos to the iPad and the system was to my surprise going back to the same problem, not recognizing the album classification and charging all the photos to the Time log, I was desperate because all this was taking hour..., then I decided to interrupt the sync and do a resetting of the iPad: press and hold Home and Power button simultaneously and then also do a normal shutdown and a restart and do another sync and to my surprise suddenly the system started with a backup... and some albums started to appear on the photo program but only a couple of them that were not yet previously copied, I was able then to recover some 10.000 photos classified in the album slot of the application, with the album names I had given them and the photos accessible through this album classification that is so important for the sake of organization. After the sync stopped, I tried to sync again to see if I could recover all the other photos, but to my surprise the sync button for the photos was not ticked and I had to ticket it and to do another recover of all the last 10.000 photos again and another backup started, and the photo album classification was again showing correctly, with the photos inside. Then I decided to change my backup on my outside disk that I was using to do the sync and remove to another folder all the photos that were not on the album part of the photo application in order to try to remove the Photos inside the iPad that were not album classified but only on the time part of the application through another sync ….later I could place them back to the main photo backup folder I was using… I started another sync with a backup occurring and was able to do what I wanted, to remove these pictures from inside the iPad and the time part of the picture application....then I did another sync with another backup, The system was responding crrectly starting always a sync with a backup of my iPad and the system started with all the album names displaying on the application with some 23.000 pictures to be copied. After a couple of hours the system stopped with 50% of the pics copied and the album names of the remainder not copied disappeared… I decided then to do another sync, the system started with another backup and recognized the missing pictures and the album names and I was able to recover everything. I wanted you to Know how I have done it, it was very time consuming and challenging, but now the system is as it was before I made the IOS 9.2 upgrade and now, also to my surprise, much faster than before…
What a strange behavior, I wonder if Apple should not have a look at this type of problems because I think there are still some SW glitches on this IOS 9.2 to improve.
Kind regards João

 

[Deleted member 247820]

Hi Joao.
May I ask a question first?
You said that you decided to do a factory restet.
Then you mentioned that you made a backup from the latest available backup. Did you do both?
I presume that after you did the backup(s) you then tried to sync your photos via iTunes?
It is interesting to notice that interupting the sync did not cause worse trouble, but in fact seemed to "solve" some issues.
Now that you have resolved your huge problem, what do you intend to do to (a) not get the problem again and (b) if you do, what will you do to fix it easy?
Anyway with some luck you will never get such a problem anymore.
Perhaps you need to ask yourself again:
"Why do I need so many photos on your iPad?"
Of course everyone uses their device for personal reasons.
I am not implying that you should not do as you do.
I bet you are now one happy man!
If your iPad is running much faster, seems to say that it was in some endless loop trying to resolve issues, and now is working as expected.

Best wishes.
Peter.