iphone 3gs shows activation required, hocked up to iTunes and it is not recognized. Did the restore but just gets to the end and gives an error message it could not be restored, an unknown error occurred (-1). Can someone assist me in next steps please?

Instructions to get the phone back working temporary.. till there is a real fix.

1. turn off the phone

2. fire up iTunes

3. press and hold the home button, plug in the cable, hold till you get to see the recovery mode

4. iTunes will the allow to choose restore the phone back to 5.0.1 ( no other choice)

5. iTunes will then ask you to choose which previous backup to would like to recover.

(note: please do not reboot your phone unless necessary, i realize at times after reboot, it goes back to sq1)