If you’re getting the following error message…

“Not Enough Storage: This iPhone cannot be backed up because there is not enough iCloud storage available. You can manage your storage in Settings.”

…this may be a legitimate error for you, and if that’s the case, then the answer for you is to either copy some of the data from your iOS device to your computer and delete the data you just copied from your iOS device so there is less to backup to iCloud, OR you can simply buy more iCloud storage.

And keep in mind that if you are backing up more than one device to the iCloud, that each backup of each device will count as additional space being taken up, even if they are the same files on each device.

However, if your situation is similar to the one that I encountered where you aren’t backing up much data in the first place, and then all of a sudden you don’t have enough space to backup your device via iCloud, this fix is for you.

Here is how to fix it:

Go to Settings>General>Usage>under “iCloud”, select Manage Storage>select your iOS device

Here is the screen that you’ll get:

It will tell you the date of the lastest backup, as well as its size. Below that, under “Backup Options”, it will tell you the “Next Backup Size”, which tells you how large the next backup will be. And below that, it will tell you the items that are taking up the most space in order of size, from most to least.

The On/Off switch next to each item listed is turning on and off the backing up of the data for that section or app. So if there is data that you don’t care about backing up, just switch the On/Off switch next to it to “Off”, and if that fixes your storage issue (frees up enough space), then you are good to go.

In this case, the next backup was going to be 5.3GB (this is not pictured above, because I fixed the issue before I decided to blog about it), however the most recent one was only 3.1GB.

On top of that, Apple only gives you 5GB free in your iCloud account. Any more storage space, and you’ll need to pay. Since both the iPhone and iPad were being backed up in this case, something needed to be done.

So I looked under the “Next Backup Size” to see what was taking up the most space, and it was the Camera Roll, which is the album in the Photos app that has all of the photos that you take with your iPhone, the screenshots that you take of the phone’s screen, and the videos that you take with the phone.

I then went to the Camera Roll album to take a look at what was taking up so much space so soon after the last backup, and I noticed that there was ONE video file that was 1hr 15 min long that was taking up 2.2GB of space!

Apparently, what happened was kind of like a pocket dial, where it started recording video without anyone intentionally touching it. The camera button was pressed accidentally while it was being put in a pocket.

The reason it started recording video instead of just taking a picture was that the last time the camera was used, video was taken. That setting will stay the same for the next use of the camera until you change it.

So, I just deleted the big ass video of nothingness and all was well again.

The reason this was able to happen is that with iOS 5, you can now go directly into the camera with the swipe of the screen (starting at the camera icon) without having to unlock the screen. So this is one of the downsides to that feature. However, I’ll deal with it, because it’s worth being able to catch those fleeting Kodak moments when they occur!

Hope that helps ya!

If any of you have any other fixes for this situation, feel free to post them below so others can benefit.

Thanks!

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I just had a client who reformatted his drive and reinstalled Windows XP Pro on it. After he did that, when he reattached the 2 other SATA internal hard drives that he has for his data, one showed up fine, and the other showed up as a “Foreign Domestic Drive” and had a yellow question mark next to it in Disk Management (see image of similar situation below).

 
When I RIGHT-clicked on it in Disk Management, it gave the options to either “convert to basic disk” (which you do NOT want to do unless you want to lose all of your data), or to “Import Foreign Disk.” The answer was to Import Foreign Disk. It only took about 10 seconds.

So here’s how to get to Disk Management in Windows XP to do this:

1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group (which basically means just log into your computer since a user is set up as an “Administrator” by default)
2. Click Start button in bottom left
3. Click Run (Windows 7 or Vista see below)
4. Type compmgmt.msc (Windows 7 or Vista see below)
5. Click OK (Windows 7 or Vista see below)
6. In the console tree, click Disk Management (Windows 7 or Vista see below)

NOTE 1: If you’re using Windows 7 or Vista, skip steps 3 – 6 above, and after you click the colored start ball in the bottom left of your screen, simply type Disk Management in the search field and hit your key to get to Disk Management.

7. Once in Disk Management, RIGHT-click on the section for the hard drive in question where the yellow exclamation mark is on the the icon for the hard drive (same section where it as “Dynamic Foreign”; see image above)
8. Select “Import Foreign Disk”
9. It will take about 10 seconds to do its thing
10. It will then ask, “Before using these disks, add them to your system configuration. Disk groups: ” Below that text will be a box with a check box already checked next to “Foreign disk group (1 of 1 disk).” Yes, you want to do that. Just click OK.
11. After this, you should be good to go and have all of your data back, so check it.

NOTE 2: During my research, one guy said after he clicked “Import Foreign Disk,” it hanged for about 10 hours, however everyone else said that it worked. And it worked for my client. So maybe that one guy was experiencing a user error or had a more serious problem. But I still feel compelled to say to do this at your own risk.

After you do this, the only thing that will be different is that the bar in Disk Management for that disk that was just imported will be green instead of blue. But other than that, things will be back to normal.

NOTE 3: If you your disk is being classified as “invalid” instead of “foreign,” then you might have it connected via USB, which Windows Vista & 7 do not like. If that’s the case, then find a way to connect it directly via SATA or IDE (depending on what kind of drive it is), and then it should show up as a foreign drive and you can follow the above instructions to import it.

Enjoy!

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Did you get a “bad value” error while uploading a video to YouTube? Want to know what the deal is? It’s simply that there is a symbol in the description of your video that you typed that YouTube doesn’t like.

The one that gave me the error was the “>” symbol. So if you used “>” or “< " in the desription of your video, then that's your problem. Simply delete it and then save your changes. If that was not what you used, then look for other symbols in your description. Just try deleting each one, one by one, saving it after you delete each one so you know which one is causing the issue. If there are other characters that you used in your description that caused this error and you know what it is, then please post it in the comments below so others can benefit. Thanks!
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If you’re getting the message, “iTunes requires a computer with a G4, G5 or Intel processor”, then that means you’re dealing with an older Mac that has a G3 processor or earlier that is not compatible with the latest version of iTunes.

What’s the fix?

Well, you have to dig around the Internet to find it, but Sarah, a visitor to my blog, emailed me and asked me what to do. So I did some research, and found that if you are running Mac OS X 10.4.1, which is Tiger, then all you need to do is install iTunes 8.4, which you can get here:

Download iTunes 8.4 for Mac
(again, you have to have a G3 processor, and you have to be running 10.4.1 (Tiger) or later)

However, if you are running, let’s say, Mac OS X 10.3.9, which is what she was running, then this is where you need to dig a little deeper on the Internet to find your solution.

Luckily, the boys over at ihackintosh.com did the dirty work for me. They made a blog post that has the direct Apple download links to previous versions of iTunes, from version 7.4 to 8.2 for both Mac and PC. However, you’ll need to research which version is best for your system. Google is your friend in this type of situation.

Check out their list of vintage iTunes download links here.

By the way, the solution I suggested for Sarah was to give iTunes version 7.4 a try. I’ll send her the link to this post, and hopefully she’ll return with positive results that she’ll post in the comments below. I’m sure she’s have some good news. ;)

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