I backed up my iPhone using Apple Devices on my ASUS Windows laptop before having the battery replaced. The backup completed, but restoring it now fails with: "Could not restore the iPhone because an error occurred while reading from or writing to the iPhone."
Because my C: drive had only about 13 GB free, I moved the Apple Devices backup location to my internal D: drive using a symbolic link. The restore seems to stop after creating roughly 13.6 GB of data. My laptop is also currently repairing the D: drive, so I'm concerned the drive may have errors. Can I copy the backup to another Windows computer with Apple Devices or iTunes and restore my photos, notes, and other data there? Does the C: drive still need substantial free space even when the backup is stored on D:?
1 Answer
A Windows backup should generally be restorable from another Windows computer as long as you use a compatible version of Apple Devices or iTunes and the backup folder is complete and undamaged. A Windows backup normally cannot be restored through a Mac, and vice versa.
The drive repair is important here. If D: has filesystem or hardware problems, the backup may be incomplete or some files may be unreadable. Don’t keep attempting restores until the repair finishes, and make a separate copy of the entire backup folder to a healthy drive if possible. The symbolic link itself is not automatically a problem, but the backup path must resolve correctly and Apple Devices must have access to every file.
You may also need free space on C: even with the backup stored on D:, since Apple Devices or Windows can use the system drive for temporary files, device data, logs, or part of the restore process. Having only 13 GB available could cause the restore to fail, especially if the phone’s used storage is larger. Freeing substantial space on C: and checking the health of D: would be sensible before trying again.
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