New 4S won't restore from iPhone 4 backup, stuck in setup loop

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New 4S won't restore from iPhone 4 backup, stuck in setup loop

I purchased a new 4S today and at the store they fired it up and activated it. Fine, but I want to restore all the apps and files from my iPhone 4.

At home I started by doing a restore to factory defaults. The phone rebooted and in iTunes asked if I wanted to set it up as a new phone or restore from a backup. I want to restore from the backup of my iPhone 4. It proceeds to restore, but after the progress bar completes and the phone reboots iTunes goes back to the same screen asking if I want to set up a new phone or retore from backup.

I'm stuck in a loop.

My iPhone 4 was running iOS 5 so I figured this should have been easy but so far I'm stymied. Any suggestions?

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 1:59 PM

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Answer 1

Wes Plate Author

Level 4

2,859 points

Oct 15, 2011 2:14 PM in response to Wes Plate

I might have it working now. This time I chose to set it up as a new phone then after the phone appeared again in the device list I right-clicked on the iPhone 4S and from the contect menu chose Restore from Backup. This time after the device rebooted it appeared with my iPhone 4's name and started syncing all the apps.

Fingers crossed it completes correctly.

I don't know why it didn't work the first time.

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