videos and photos from camera roll have disapeard

[Mzz_Bayonet]

Our students have 32gb iPad Airs and are currently using iOS 7.1.1. We've had several students come in to the IT office over the last couple days saying that a project they had been working on in iMovie has disappeared. The alert notification that popped up says that the video they were using can no longer be found or the file name has been changed. When we try to search for it, the iPad can't find the file. We check in the camera roll and there are NO more photos OR videos in her camera roll even though the student insists she had a good amount of photos and videos in there. In addition, "Upload to iCloud" was turned on for iMovie as well as Photo Stream in her iCloud settings. So where did her iMovie project and other pictures and videos go?


I tried accessing them via a Mac by opening the iCloud dashboard but no projects or photos and videos are showing up in there either. How can we avoid students loosing their school work in these apps?

 

[J. A.]

In case they synced the iPad to a computer, the files probably were removed from the iPad.

As you use iCloud, it may be possible to retrieve them, if the iPads are backed up regularly: erase all content and settings and restore them using the iCloud backup with the videos and photos.

You can also try using software, such as "iPad (iPhone) Data Recovery", on your computer, to retrieve the photos and videos.

If you don't want this to happen again, make sure they are backed up every night, when (supposedly) no one is working with them.

Store the files somewhere else. There's free online storage, like OneDrive, Google Drive, Box or Dropbox (just a few out of the many that exist) which can upload photos automatically, e.g.

Saving the files to a computer, using iCloud, is also possible. So if something like this happens again, you know where to find them.