iCloud "My daughters older devices are gone" help

[YeOldeStonecat]

*edited to correct the phones..I originally had her old phones as a 5 and 4, they were a 6 and a 5.*

So..I'm not all up on Apple products. This one is for my daughter. She's had a plethora of handed down iPhones from my wife as my wife got new ones.
So a month ago she got a new iPhone 8. Set it up on iCloud.
Also in there were here prior 6 (TONS of pictures), and even older 5 (some pictures), and her iPad. Could see those devices and their pictures online when you log into icloud.com from a computer. Much similar to how Google Backup works on Androids....I can see my pictures from all devices there.

Today...she came to me, saying her other devices are gone from iCloud. Only her new 8 is showing up there..and it doesn't have a lot of pictures yet, like..40.

Now...a few weeks ago, she wanted to change her primary login for iCloud/iTunes..her Apple ID. It was originally a cutsy little name at gmail...she's turning 15 now she's done with cutsy little names so I made her a Gmail account with her actual name..and we went to change her primary login for her Apple stuff to that. Seemed fine..change primary login, her cutsy old login name still shows up in the online account properties as a secondary account. Apple ID/iTunes/iCloud all seemed to function just fine after changing that primary login to her new Gmail account...her iPhone 8 rolled in just fine.

BUT..log into iCloud..and her old 6 and 5 phones are no longer listed under Devices.
She found some iCloud recovery software which you set to log into the account and it shows prior devices and data and if you pay them money says it will restore them.
I grabbed EaseUS mobisave and it does the same....shows the old devices and lots of data.

Her iphone 4 still works. hadn't ran in a while so she just charged it and booted it up I told her to jump on the wifi and log into iCloud and try a fresh back. There are "some" pictures on that she still wants. but the iPhone 5 is dead dead dead...got super hot one day and just stopped booting up. She has TONS of important pics on that.

So...I'm not a phone guy...reaching out to the collective here. Super tired..going on about 5 days not much sleep..wife had retinal surgery...it had detached...it's been a rough few days and I've been home and will be home not working for a while.

 

[Markverhyden]

1. Per chance, I know probably not, did she periodically plug them into a real computer to use itunes ro do a backup?

2. Most likely the old devices are gone under the new login because they had not been refreshed using the new login. Did she try logging in under the old credentials. I'd try putting the account back to the way it was as well, just the original login.

3. There is a recover option but not sure how that works with smart devices.



4. Also, if the 5 had not been kept up to date it'll be missing potential recovery options.

5. I've had plenty of those backup discussions with my daughter over the years. In one ear and out the other, lost data several times. Sounds rough but tell her that the price of not taking care of her stuff. In spite of what I say I'd still be a softy and pay for the Easus if it's not too high.

Best of luck Brian!!!

Forgot to mention. For any possibility of data recovery the device must always be offline, 802.11 and cellular, then backed up using iTunes, etc. As soon as the device hits the Internet the damage is done.

 

[HankArnold]

Brian,

If the phones will power up, there are USB external drives available. You could copy them to the stick and then (on a computer, upload them to the iCloud. I use this one ($60 USD), but there are others out there.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072WMZT3X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

BTW, I've never liked iCloud. I'd recommend Dropbox. The basic/free account is most likely more than enough space.

 

[cyabro]

Also check out google photos.
Uploads all your photos to the cloud so you don’t have to worry about them again.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

1. Per chance, ...
.

1- I do not believe she had in a while with the 6...will check her old laptop she had back then. Was a little Dell Lat 4200...small SSD so probably did not back up the phone since she assumed iCloud covered that.

2- Her old credentials will not work in the iCloud web log in...but I'll go in today and flip those around again. I thought of that for a minute..but figured the service would be smart enough to roll with the flow. But yeah perhaps since the devices didn't "update" with the new login...they fell off the radar. I'll try swappng her login back to the old one tonight with her.

3- Yeah those recovery options are for some types of data (but not photos...of devices that currently show up in her list (so...even if it did allow photo recovery...her 6 and 5 are not on the available list of devices to sort through old backups on)

5- Not sure how up to date it was...I'd think it was, kids these days usually eager beaver to update

Thanks!.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Also check out google photos.
Uploads all your photos to the cloud so you don’t have to worry about them again.

Yeah I'll get her to trust that more than iCloud....always worked with all my old (and current) phones. "It just works!"

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Brian,

If the phones will power up, there are USB external drives available. You could copy them to the stick and then (on a computer, upload them to the iCloud. I use this one ($60 USD), but there are others out there..

Thanks Hank. Her 5 powers up so I'm sure we'll get the old photos off of that...it's her 6 that won't power up that she's really bummed about. It has tons of pics from many things last year up until several weeks ago when it died and she got the 8. The thing got super hot on her one day at school and it never came back up after that.

Assuming it can't be taken apart and some internal SD card removed and scaned. There's no sign of life plugging it into a computer via USB cable.

 

[CLC]

I've used a 3rd party application to download all a customers icloud data to my workstation so they do work, I think it was a wondershare product.

 

[Krynn72]

Thanks Hank. Her 5 powers up so I'm sure we'll get the old photos off of that...it's her 6 that won't power up that she's really bummed about. It has tons of pics from many things last year up until several weeks ago when it died and she got the 8. The thing got super hot on her one day at school and it never came back up after that.

Assuming it can't be taken apart and some internal SD card removed and scaned. There's no sign of life plugging it into a computer via USB cable.

You should reach out to http://mendonipadrehab.com/ regarding the 6. Doing data recovery off boards like that is what they do.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

You should reach out to http://mendonipadrehab.com/ regarding the 6. Doing data recovery off boards like that is what they do.

Thanks...will keep that in mind if recovering the device from iCloud fails...

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Just a side note...when you go to her iPhone 8, or even her old 6 that still fires up...you go to your iCloud account and look at devices..it still shows the "missing" devices.

 

[fencepost]

Are you able to restore items from the old backups onto the new devices? Because that seems like an obvious capability to have for a backup.

If everything from the 5 can be restored to the 8 (which likely has plenty of storage), can they all then be pushed into a separate non-backup service e.g. photo storage?