An error occurred while restoring this iPhone (-1).

Let me know what you find out. I'm getting the same error "An error occurred while restoring this iPhone (-1)." while trying to restore from backup on my 3Gs. Most folks I know have been able to get it to work by simply retrying a few times, but I'm up to a good 20+ retries with no luck. If they call back with questions, you can let them know it's not related to music/movies at least, as I have none of either on my phone. 🙂

Hi, i have exactly the same message but im living in hall in uni so there is no way i can ring the support line so if you hear anything please could you let us know 🙂

I'm on Windows 7 64-bit and I'm also getting restore error (-1) and sometimes error (-10). Have tried dozens of times. I paid for a support incident but the Apple rep couldn't help me and couldn't get his supervisor on the phone after 15 minutes on hold. This error is happening after IOS5 firmware loads ok on the phone but iTunes fails during the restore just as the restore wants to begin with error (-1) or error (-10). I can only locate a backup under a whole new folder - ....AppData/Roaming/Mobile Backups/{iphone serial number}. That backup is not directly visible to iTunes. My other backup is much older (dumb.) What are errors -1 and -10?

Id love to know what -1 error is as like you im having same problem. Have successfully upgraded to ios5 on iphone but when i try and restore from backup i get this message after a couple of mins. Have tried what feels like a million times.

iphonewiki.com lists error (-1) as:

"Error occurs when one uses the "last ditch" method for preventing baseband updates on the iPhone 4. The baseband does not get updated using this method. Use TinyUmbrella to kick it out of recovery mode."

I am coming up with the same error on my 3Gs.

After months of attempting to talk my fiance's mom into updating to an iphone from her flip phone from 1998, apple undermines my entire argument in one swoop. bah!

If anyone has a solution to this issue, your suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

I have a possible workaround but it may not work for everyone (only the truly desperate), some of the steps may be unnecessary and this may apply only if you have lost your good iTunes iPhone backup or it is corrupted. After repeated errors -1, -10, 9, and 14 I was able to restore my 3GS and recover everything including my camera roll and text messages. I had to get my phone to recovery mode, then go to a different computer with iTunes 10.5 (in my case a Mac desktop.) I let the Mac download and reinstall the IOS 5 software on the iPhone. Then I ejected the iPhone when I was asked to restore from a backup on the Mac (it wasn't my iTunes account) but before it did a restore. Next I went back to my Windows PC. I didn't plug in the iPhone yet but I used a different USB port and unplugged all other devices and used a new cable. I have had USB issues on my PC in the past and believe this may have contributed to a prior corrupted backup problem. In fact, I did not have a backup listed for my iPhone under iTunes even though I watched it complete the backup during the upgrade! BUT I FOUND THAT BACKUP HIDDEN AWAY under "user/AppData/Roaming/Apple Computer/iTunes/Mobile Backups/iphoneserialnumber/Structured". I dragged (copied) only the Structured subdirectory and contents to the MobileSync/Backup subdirectory with the other iTunes backups for my iPad and Touch. I did not change the name of the subdirectory so it looked weird along side the others but when I went to iTunes and looked at the backups for all the devices the backup for my phone appeared under the normal name of my phone device just as it should. When I plugged in the phone, it allowed me to restore from the backup created during the upgrade procedure. I then had to sync all my apps and music which took some time but I had no -1 errors which for me I now believe came from my USB failing when hot. That said, I wish I'd waited. My iPhone4S arrived the next day. I made sure I had a good backup (and a copy) and then activated (on AT&T) my new phone. It took 3 minutes to come on line. I plugged into iTunes as directed and restored cleanly in a couple of passes. Moral of the story: Have a good backup and a copy. Don't upgrade or activate on day 1 unless you are writing for a deadline. Make sure your USB is stable. As to the 4S, enjoy. I just used my new 4S to text my son only by speaking to Siri. No hands texting is great. He is now on his way to dump his Blackberry and replace it with the 4S.

FWIW, this worked for me:

1. After getting the error, when it asked again if I wanted to resume restore, I cancelled.

2. Phone auto-synced from iTunes, which I allowed.

3. After sync, I unplugged phone from computer, did a hard shut down on phone (wait 30sec-1min), then rebooted.

4. I began the configuration set-up process from the phone, picking "install from iTunes backup" when prompted.

5. I reconnected my phone to computer.

6. I selected (again) the option to restore from backup.

This time it worked quite well. I'm wondering if having sync'ed all my apps to my phone already might have helped it shoot past the point where it was hanging on the restore; however that's mere speculation.

The one piece of advice I can firmly give is to cancel out of the restore when it pops back up after giving an error (-1), let your phone do it's thing, then start the restore again from the phone. Simply hitting the restore from backup button over and over as it repops seems to keep it in its error loop, as I tried doing that a good 50+ times with no luck....yet as soon as I cancelled and permitted the phone to sync before going through the process, it worked like a charm.

Let me know if this works for others, so we can flag it appropriately if so.

I love you IsisPisces!

It works for me too!

Thank you for saving me!

Great! If it works for others go ahead and flag it as the correct answer or at least a helpful answer for the issue, assuming you can. 🙂

worked for me

many thanks

you save my world

thanks man!

It took a while to shut down my phone once I unplugged it from the computer but I persevered and it worked a treat. It also took a while to restore and the screen on my phone was blank while this took place but i let it do its thing and was patient.

Thanks!