can i restore the iphone without update?

I have no idea missGEX but if I were you I wouldn't bother with iOS 5. It's terrible. You lose all your music and apps and the only way to get apps back is to download them on iPhone via app store. I got about 100 at least so this would take about a week to do.

I can't do a restore from ANY back up cos the files is corrupted and I always get an error message.

I can't wait till jan when my contract is u p, so I can sling my iPhone in the bin and get a samsung.

Are you saying there's no way to restore the device prior to the update?

No. If you restore your phone, the most current iOS will be installed on it.

Hold down option when you hit restore and you'll be able to choose your ios, provided that you haven't already replaced it with the newer ios. There are still places online to download the older versions though.

Similar problem here. My iphone4s went into recovery mode when I was trying to update it to ios6 and itunes to 10.7. Itunes never completed the update and is still version 10.6. Since my iphone is in recovery mode, does anyone know what version I will have when I do a restore? Also, if it restores and has iOS6 (which I don't want yet) will that be compatible with iTunes 10.6? Also, where do I hold down "Option" during the restore? Is the option feature part of Itunes? Thanks.