My iPhone 4s will not sync with itunes

When I plug in my new iPhone 4s to itunes, it recognizes the phone, starts to sync, and then will get stuck at step 2 which is backup. I have no idea what's wrong. I try to cancel the sync, and then my itunes freezes up and I have to start task manager to close it. I've been having so many issues with itunes lately that I recently uninstalled it and reinstalled it, and it still will not connect to the itunes store (this was the main issue I was having before). It will still download things, however (I bought an album on my iPhone and the digital booklet was automatically downloaded to my itunes). Any suggestions?