I can't seem to find an answer in the forum about this but I'm trying to restore my iPhone 3G to a previous date (March 5, 2010). When I go into iTunes to restore it, I find that instead of my March 5th backup, I'm only given the option of the March 8th backup.
I've found the March 5th backup in the MobileSync folder. How can I restore my iPhone back to the March 5th backup?
MBP17" 2.4GHz Parallels 4 w/ Win7 - iMac 20" 2.66GHz iLife '09 -,
Mac OS X (10.6.2),
- iPhone3G 8GB - 5th Gen 30GB iPod Video
There is only one backup kept of the recent state of the phone - and I am guessing that that is the 8th March version. I am guessing that between the 5th and the 8th March you updates to 3.1.3 and that the one dated the 5th is the 3.1.2 version to which you cannot go if it is.
If you want to go back beyond the last backup, you would need to restore an older backup from your regular hard disc backups, but you cannot go back to beyond the last system update I believe.
Only one iphone backup is kept, except for restore backups, its actually an incremental backup in that only the data that has changed is overwritten. That's why you see more than one date in the MobileSync folder. Restore backups are time date stamped and are not overwritten. Under preferences, the device pane, in itunes, how many backups do you show listed? There should only be one, unless there is also a restore backup listed. If you're trying to go back to 3/5 for the purpose of downgrading your software to 3.1.2, you can't. Apple signs all iphone firmware, thus the only firmware you can install on your phone is 3.1.3, no matter what backup you chose to restore from.