I backed up my iPhone using the Apple Devices app on my Windows laptop before having the battery replaced. I moved the backup location to my internal D: drive because my C: drive has only about 13 GB free. When I try to restore the backup, I get: "Could not restore the iPhone because an error occurred while reading from or writing to the iPhone."
My laptop is also currently repairing the D: drive, showing "Fixing D drive, Stage 2," so I'm concerned the drive may have errors. The restore seems to fail after creating only about 13.6 GB of data. Can I use the backup on another Windows computer with the Apple Devices app, and could the changed backup location or lack of free space on C: be causing the problem? I mainly need to recover my photos, notes, and other data.
1 Answer
A Windows backup should generally be restorable from another Windows computer using the Apple Devices app, provided the complete backup folder is intact and was made with a compatible version of the software. It won’t normally transfer directly between Windows and macOS.
The immediate priority is the D: drive repair. Don’t keep attempting restores or moving the backup while Windows is fixing that drive, because filesystem errors could corrupt the backup. Once the repair finishes, copy the entire backup folder to another healthy drive before testing it. Also make sure the destination computer has plenty of free space on both C: and D:. Even when the backup is stored on D:, Apple’s software or Windows may still need temporary files and system space on C:, and 13 GB may not be enough for a large restore.
If the backup is encrypted, you’ll also need its backup password. If the same error continues after the drive is confirmed healthy and there is ample free space, the backup itself may be incomplete or damaged.
The symbolic link probably isn’t automatically the problem, but it can fail if it points to the wrong folder, lacks permissions, or the D: drive disconnects or reports errors. After the drive repair, verify that the backup folder contains the complete device-backup structure and test from a copied version rather than the only original.