I restored my iPhone and I lost all my text.. but I know iTunes backs it up and I didnt get them back when I resynced my phone. I've restored before and recovered my texts, but this time it didnt.

Anyone know a work around this or where this file is kept?

Originally Posted by dc5rsx

I restored my iPhone and I lost all my text.. but I know iTunes backs it up and I didnt get them back when I resynced my phone. I've restored before and recovered my texts, but this time it didnt.

Anyone know a work around this or where this file is kept?

Under Windows Vista, all backup files are stored at

c:\users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\AppleComputer\ MobileSync\Backup\<long-name>

Where the long name is the key id of the backup iPhone.

Inside each directory there are a series of files. Each file with extension MDBACKUP is in fact a binary plist. To recover you need:

a) Locate the file that you need. You need to open each file and look at the first line and you will clearly identifiy the file name.

b) Rename the .mdbackup file to .plist.

c) Convert to a XML format plist (you can use http://140.124.181.188/~khchung/cgi-bin/plutil.cgi)

d) Confirm the file name under the "Path" key

d) Extract the part that is the file content (the "Data" key)

e) Place the content on the "Data" in another file and convert from Base64 to a binary file - There are several different ways to do it - I will leave this one for you to Google.

Voila! Your file is back. I've used this a few times to recover files from iPhones that were "accidentally" upgraded and locked and it works. You will be amazed by the number of files that iTunes back up.

If I could find the source for a binary-plist to xml-plist converter, I can write a backup list-and-restore program (grab the names, convert from the binary, extract the base64 and convert to the original file).

Originally Posted by aviegas

Under Windows Vista, all backup files are stored at

c:\users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\AppleComputer\ MobileSync\Backup\<long-name>

Where the long name is the key id of the backup iPhone.

Inside each directory there are a series of files. Each file with extension MDBACKUP is in fact a binary plist. To recover you need:

a) Locate the file that you need. You need to open each file and look at the first line and you will clearly identifiy the file name.

b) Rename the .mdbackup file to .plist.

c) Convert to a XML format plist (you can use http://140.124.181.188/~khchung/cgi-bin/plutil.cgi)

d) Confirm the file name under the "Path" key

d) Extract the part that is the file content (the "Data" key)

e) Place the content on the "Data" in another file and convert from Base64 to a binary file - There are several different ways to do it - I will leave this one for you to Google.

Voila! Your file is back. I've used this a few times to recover files from iPhones that were "accidentally" upgraded and locked and it works. You will be amazed by the number of files that iTunes back up.

If I could find the source for a binary-plist to xml-plist converter, I can write a backup list-and-restore program (grab the names, convert from the binary, extract the base64 and convert to the original file).

Hi Aviegas,

Can you tell me some more details, as I got through to step d) and do not know clearly step e).

Please help, as I really need this technology.

Thanks.

Just in case you are using a Mac, you can aswell use Erica Sadun's mdhelper, check post # 10 here

http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/show...light=mdhelper

I mean copy the lines from one file to another (cut and paste) using a Text Editor (Word is not a text editor, neither is Notepad ).

This newly created file needs to be converted from Base64 encoding to plain text. As I said, Google it.

you can do the above mentioned steps automatically at http://insend.de

Hack,
how do you find this file if you are not running Windows Vista, just the regular Windows home office?

Will the file name still be the same and should I just search on it?

Originally Posted by peter_thepied

Hack,
how do you find this file if you are not running Windows Vista, just the regular Windows home office?

Will the file name still be the same and should I just search on it?

On everything from at least windows 2000 and higher this should work.

Code:

%AppData%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

Windows knows how to expand out %AppData% to the correct path for your windows version and username.

Simply paste that into start menu - Run and it will open the correct location. If it odes not work, try double quotes around the beginning and end.

Code:

"%AppData%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\"

Check this link: Backup iPhone Text Messages

You will find where is sms DB and how to extract it.

For backing up text messages, try the decipher tools.
iPhone Tools - Decipher Media

I don't know if they work for windows, however it works great on my mac and I was able to back up / recover all my text messages to my computer which was a huge help.