# iPhone won't restore (error -50)



## lily18 (Oct 5, 2008)

My boyfriend has an iPhone 3G and only now he's trying to update to 4.1. He's using a rather crappy Vaio, but it works. He installed the latest version of iTunes the other day. Anyway today he plugged in his phone and said "download and install" for the update. It downloaded and made a backup of his phone, and then installed. But it won't restore the backup. He gets a message that says, "iTunes was interrupted while restoring contents of the iPhone. Would you like to restore the iPhone again now?"

Clicking on "Continue Restore" gives this message:

"An error occurred while restoring this iPhone (-50)."

We've googled and there's not much about error -50. There's this thread from a month ago but no helpful replies, so we have no idea what's going on. There's also no option to "restore from backup" when right-clicking on the device. 

Anyone have any ideas?


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## xorpion (Jul 26, 2002)

I've experienced the same error but it was after I was trying downgrade my iOS for jailbreaking purposes. I was able to restore it from my backup in iTunes though, so I don't know why that's happening for you.


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## lily18 (Oct 5, 2008)

Hmm. Is it possible to transfer the backup to another computer and do the restore from there?


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## johnnydee (Feb 10, 2004)

I recently had the same problem!
Ended up doing a restore on a different computer and everything went back to normal!

J


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## lily18 (Oct 5, 2008)

Did you transfer the backup to another computer then? And if so, how did you transfer it? Thanks


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## johnnydee (Feb 10, 2004)

After you restore you can sync it with whatever other computer or account you want!


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## lily18 (Oct 5, 2008)

Heh, no I mean, the phone was backed up on the computer with the error. So basically the phone is wiped but the backup is still there on the computer. Is it possible to take that backup and transfer it to another computer, and from there do the restore? Like put the backup on a USB drive?


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## still_confused (Oct 16, 2011)

I only just now saw this post (over a year later), after getting error (-50) myself while attempting to restore backed up data to my iPhone 3G, after updating to iOS 4.2.1, in iTunes 10.5 on Windows XP SP2.

Like you, I found nearly nothing on error (-50). The following apple support article from Sept 2010 assumes you are running on Windows, and recommends re-registering various DLLs or removing 3rd party software that alters the appearance of Windows. I tried re-registering the DLLs, but it had no affect. See iTunes displays -50 error message when syncing iPod on Windows XP

In iTunes 8 through iTunes 10.4.1, backups are stored in the following directory in Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup. That directory contains individual backup directories - each one is a separate backup. Copy whatever is in the MobileSync\Backup directory to your other computer, and you should be able to restore the data from the backup. I don't know if iTunes 10.5 writes some backup info to other locations or not.

You'll need to copy or move media to your new computer, and transfer purchases. See iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer. You can use your iPod, iPhone or a USB flash drive to transfer the media. See How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer.

Additionally, if you have synced to Outlook or Windows Address Book, and you want to sync on your new computer, you'll need to move that information over. I have not done that so I don't know what you would need to do.


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## still_confused (Oct 16, 2011)

lily18 said:


> ...Is it possible to take that backup and transfer it to another computer, and from there do the restore? Like put the backup on a USB drive?


Yes, you can transfer your backups, media and other important data to a different Mac or PC and restore from there. I transferred backup files to another PC and successfully restored my iPhone. Later, I connected my iPhone to the original PC and sync'ed on that box.

To restore your backup using a different PC, first copy your backup files to the other PC. On Windows XP, they're located in C:\Documents and Settings\[USER]\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\[device]. The "device" folder has a 40-character name that is the UDID of your device. For details, and the location of your backup files on OS X and Win7/Vista, see this article.

If your backup has been corrupted, you might be able to salvage it by copying files from the Mobile Backups directory into the MobileSync\Backup directory. See this article for more info.

If you want to transfer your iTunes library to another computer, see this Apple support article. You can even use your iPod or a USB drive to transfer your library.


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## alicesmith (Jan 4, 2012)

hii

I encountered the same error while backing up my new iphone data. Sometimes i tunes application may faulted to create a backup of the old iphone . this may occur because of the error while restoring process or because of corruption of previous iphone backup. In this case you may reinstall the new version of itunes and start the process again and if the error still continues plz use automatic application tool like iPhone transfer Contacts software that not automatically transfer contact but also restores other iphone data.


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## kimayharden (Mar 19, 2013)

alicesmith said:


> hii
> 
> I encountered the same error while backing up my new iphone data. Sometimes i tunes application may faulted to create a backup of the old iphone . this may occur because of the error while restoring process or because of corruption of previous iphone backup. In this case you may reinstall the new version of itunes and start the process again and if the error still continues plz use automatic application tool like iPhone transfer Contacts software that not automatically transfer contact but also recover other iphone data.


Well, since we are not sure what it causing it, not sure if it has anything to do with the phone at all....

Are you running the latest version of iTunes? If not, download it, and try again....

Otherwise, see what the Genius Bar has to say - maybe they will be able to troubleshoot this. If nothing else, they should be able to confirm whether or not you have a phone issue....

Resource: Restore iPhone From iTunes Backuk


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