If I'm restoring phone via iTunes - Clean install or upgrade?

[satchmo]

I need to restore from previously saved iPhone sessions in iTunes.

However with iTunes not recognizing my iPhone 12 mini under High Sierra, I may try upgrading to Mohave (via unsupported patch on my 2010 MBP).

My question is must I upgrade Mohave directly on the drive where I backed up the phone to?

I'm guessing a clean install of Mohave on an external drive and booting from there won't work?

 

[KeesMacPro]

You could install Mojave on an external drive and import your data from the High Sierra drive.
Running Migration Assistant will import all data including the iPhone backup.

I'm quite sure booting from the external drive will allow you to restore your iPhone this way.
At least it's worth a try IMO , before installing Mojave on the internal drive.

Here's an interesting thread about the same issue , note that it's posted almost a year ago, so some things might have changed in the meantime:

iOS 14 devices with macOS High Sierra 13.6?

Will I still be able to backup my iPhone (with today's iOS 14 upgrade), to my ol' MacBook Pro with High Sierra 13.6?

forums.macrumors.com

 

[satchmo]

You could install Mojave on an external drive and import your data from the High Sierra drive.
Running Migration Assistant will import all data including the iPhone backup.

I'm quite sure booting from the external drive will allow you to restore your iPhone this way.
At least it's worth a try IMO , before installing Mojave on the internal drive.

Here's an interesting thread about the same issue , note that it's posted almost a year ago, so some things might have changed in the meantime:

iOS 14 devices with macOS High Sierra 13.6?

Will I still be able to backup my iPhone (with today's iOS 14 upgrade), to my ol' MacBook Pro with High Sierra 13.6?

forums.macrumors.com

Thanks, I may try that. But I may also just start new and just reinstall apps.

It's been rather frustrating and time consuming. Here I thought it was going to be as simple as just connecting the new iPhone to iTunes and hit restore.

 

[KeesMacPro]

FWIW there are some posts in the link I posted of people that could update just iTunes .

Generally Mojave is a very stable OS , IMO better than HS and the patched version worked great for me on a MBP2009 for example...

Anyway, make sure you got all contacts etc before deleting anything

 

[madrich]

I need to restore from previously saved iPhone sessions in iTunes.

However with iTunes not recognizing my iPhone 12 mini under High Sierra, I may try upgrading to Mohave (via unsupported patch on my 2010 MBP).

My question is must I upgrade Mohave directly on the drive where I backed up the phone to?

I'm guessing a clean install of Mohave on an external drive and booting from there won't work?

I know that you indicated that you need to restore your iPhone from previously saved iTunes sessions. However, if your iPhone has everything on it now, why not just backup it up to iCloud now, and forget about iTunes.

 

[KeesMacPro]

I know that you indicated that you need to restore your iPhone from previously saved iTunes sessions. However, if your iPhone has everything on it now, why not just backup it up to iCloud now, and forget about iTunes.

I think the OP got a new iPhone and wants to import all data from the previous one.
At least that's how I understood it...

 

[satchmo]

FWIW there are some posts in the link I posted of people that could update just iTunes .

Generally Mojave is a very stable OS , IMO better than HS and the patched version worked great for me on a MBP2009 for example...

Anyway, make sure you got all contacts etc before deleting anything

Interesting...so did you upgrade your MBP2009 to Mohave using that dosdude hack? If so, any major issues or performance concerns?

I know that you indicated that you need to restore your iPhone from previously saved iTunes sessions. However, if your iPhone has everything on it now, why not just backup it up to iCloud now, and forget about iTunes.

As KeesMacPro said, I'm trying to restore old data to a new iPhone.

 

[KeesMacPro]

Interesting...so did you upgrade your MBP2009 to Mohave using that dosdude hack? If so, any major issues or performance concerns?

Yes, I used the DosDude installer and all worked as smooth as with supported Oses. No performance issues or thelike ever noticed.