03-28-2012, 09:41 AM

Greetings all,

I have searched all over the Internet for a solution but unfortunately I am stacked!

I reinstalled Lion in my Macbook to have a fresh system. When I connected my Iphone to the laptop I made the mistake and didn't choose "merge" when I was asked what to do with the new phone. As a result all of my contacts get lost.
Fortunately I can restore from backup but I can't find a way to make Itunes "forget" about this Iphone so that I can reconfigure it from the beginning.
Every time I connect it all my contacts are being erased

Any help would be appreciated

Thank you

03-28-2012, 09:54 AM

If you have now restored a backup to your Mac which has all the info you need just go into the settings of the phone and reset it to factory settings. Then when you connect it to iTunes it will treat it as a brand new device and offer to restore from any available iPhone backups it has or configure it as a new phone.

03-28-2012, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by mrplow

If you have now restored a backup to your Mac which has all the info you need just go into the settings of the phone and reset it to factory settings. Then when you connect it to iTunes it will treat it as a brand new device and offer to restore from any available iPhone backups it has or configure it as a new phone.

At the time being all my contacts are only on my IPhone. So, if I reset it to factory default I will loose everything.

What I am basically looking for here is a way to reset Itunes. Obviously Itunes stores that information somewhere because it does not ask me what to do when I connect the IPhone.

Any idea where that information is being stored?

Thanks

03-28-2012, 10:20 AM

Sorry, must have mis-understood your first post, when you spoke of backups I thought you meant on your Mac

I'm guessing your Mac address book is empty.
If so add a contact to it manually. It can be a made up name just for the sake of adding one. Now connect your iPhone. The Merge option should return

03-28-2012, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by mrplow

Sorry, must have mis-understood your first post, when you spoke of backups I thought you meant on your Mac

I'm guessing your Mac address book is empty.
If so add a contact to it manually. It can be a made up name just for the sake of adding one. Now connect your iPhone. The Merge option should return

Unfortunately not!

As soon as Itunes was launched it started syncing contacts and I ended up with the newly created contact in my IPhone.
A restore from backup did the trick again but we are still at the same point ...

03-28-2012, 10:32 AM

OK. Let's come at this from another angle - where's the backup coming from?

03-28-2012, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by mrplow

OK. Let's come at this from another angle - where's the backup coming from?

When Itunes synchs contacts it creates a backup first. So, the first time I synched, Itunes erased all of my contacts in the IPhone but kept a backup. So, I can restore my contacts to my IPhone but after that I have to immediately disconnect it. Endless loop.

Does it make any sense now?

03-28-2012, 10:46 AM

No, not really, sorry.

How about syncing your contacts from your phone to iCloud then using the same apple ID on iCloud on your Mac to sync them back to your Mac?

03-28-2012, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by mrplow

No, not really, sorry.

Well to be honest, it doesn't really make sense to me either. I can't believe that I am the only person in the world who made the mistake of not choosing "merge"

Originally Posted by mrplow

How about syncing your contacts from your phone to iCloud then using the same apple ID on iCloud on your Mac to sync them back to your Mac?

It is an IPhone 3G and can not run IOS 5

03-28-2012, 10:54 AM

A bit unorthodox but what about creating a new gmail account on your phone, sync your contact to gmail. Wipe and restore your phone in iTunes then sync your contact back from gmail

03-28-2012, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by mrplow

A bit unorthodox but what about creating a new gmail account on your phone, sync your contact to gmail. Wipe and restore your phone in iTunes then sync your contact back from gmail

Yes, I could do that. But I really think that there must be a way into tricking Itunes that this is a new IPhone.

03-28-2012, 11:41 AM

Agreed. Just depends if your goal is to bring your phone and mac into synchronous harmony or whether you just fancy getting one over on iTunes

03-28-2012, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by mrplow

Agreed. Just depends if your goal is to bring your phone and mac into synchronous harmony or whether you just fancy getting one over on iTunes

You are right, I just don't think that in order to sync my contacts I have to upload them first to gmail and then wipe my phone and the restore, etc.
There must be another way to let Itunes know that hey " I am dumb and I made the wrong choice. Can't this be reset somehow?"

03-29-2012, 05:25 AM

Originally Posted by gkontos

There must be another way to let Itunes know that hey " I am dumb and I made the wrong choice. Can't this be reset somehow?"

You might want to do a search on GIGO. It's an old, but still valid, computer acronym.

03-29-2012, 05:43 AM

LMAO - that was my high school computer studies teachers favourite saying.....