Does SIM card have to be in phone to back it up?

[FrugalSaver]

Or is that not required?

[neo von retorch]

It shouldn't matter. I assume you're talking about a smartphone (i.e. Android / iPhone) and you're connected to the internet via WiFi. So backups should work that way.

[FrugalSaver]

It's an iPhone. It won't connect to internet without the sim but this is a tethered back up. I had to ship it off for data collection and it's not recognizing my phone now (my laptop) so I'm guessing it needs the sim

[Daley]

There's actually a maddening two-fold issue at play here, FrugalSaver. It probably has nothing to do with the SIM card.

1) If you're using iTunes on Windows, there may be driver issues at play. If they currently aren't, they probably will be soon enough if you're on Windows.
2) In addition to driver issues, there may be O/S software mismatch between the data backed up and the phone.

iTunes won't restore data to a device from a backup off of a build of iOS more recent than what is installed on your phone. This means you have to bring your build of iOS current via a forced update through iTunes, because it won't do an OTA update without a full setup first. You won't be allowed to update your phone to the current iOS build through iTunes unless you have the latest version of iTunes installed first. Under Windows, this sometimes causes device recognition failure and driver issues. If you run into iTunes not recognizing your phone at all after updating it, this is the driver song and dance you'll have to do to fix it.

So:
1) Update iTunes.
2) Fix driver issues (if any).
3) Manually force update of iOS to phone.
4) Then and only then will they let you restore data.

Of course, if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do, just ignore me.

[dang1]

if the wifi hardware parts inside the phone are all messed up - maybe it got loose from the phone falling and hitting the ground hard or some other damage to the wifi and other internal parts, then you're sol. if it's just software, try factory reset. and in the future, back it up to icloud, please do not use tethered back up and that malware called itunes.

[FrugalSaver]

I was mainly wondering if my laptop which has previously recognized the phone will not recognize it without the sim in it. 

When i plugged it in to the laptop, the laptop / itunes recognized the phone but didn't recognize it as the same name of the phone i had previously.  I'm thinking that's because of the sim card not being in it.

I'll try putting the sim in when i'm done getting everything off the temporary phone i've been using the last couple of weeks that has the sim in it now from the original phone. 

[Nothlit]

The way iTunes recognizes a connected device has nothing to do with the SIM. Whatever problem you're having is something else. It is unclear to me what exactly happened to this phone while it was out of your possession. I don't know what "ship it off for data collection" means.

Also it is quite possible to connect to Wi-Fi even when the SIM card is removed. Unless of course the phone has been wiped and is prompting you for the SIM card in order to reactivate it. But if that's the case, then there is no data remaining on the phone for you to back up.

[FrugalSaver]

The way iTunes recognizes a connected device has nothing to do with the SIM. Whatever problem you're having is something else. It is unclear to me what exactly happened to this phone while it was out of your possession. I don't know what "ship it off for data collection" means.

Also it is quite possible to connect to Wi-Fi even when the SIM card is removed. Unless of course the phone has been wiped and is prompting you for the SIM card in order to reactivate it. But if that's the case, then there is no data remaining on the phone for you to back up.

The phone would not respond.  Just a black screen.  As a last ditch effort, I sent it off to a data collection company where they put it in a clean room and pull the data off, if they can, which they could.

When i got the phone back. oddly enough, the screen was working and it had my data on it (after i paid for the collection of the data that they shipped me).

Now when i plug it into itunes to do a backup, it doesn't recognize it as my old phone.  it has a different name.  It says "no sim" in the upper left of the iphone screen so i didn't know if itunes wasnt recognizing it because it didn't have the sim or not.

When i contacted the collection agency about why it now appeared to be working, they said they were shocked because the screen didn't work for them either. 

Regardless, apple is giving me a replacement phone for free but i wanted to do a backup of the old phone to restore to the new phone when i got it, which was the point of this thread.