iPhone 4S won't restore from backup

I left my iPhone 4S overnight to update to iOS6, but when I woke up it said it was in "recovery"(? not sure exactly, but something like this) mode and needed to be restored to factory settings. I restored it and went to get my backup from before I downloaded the update, but it isn't restoring at all, even with older versions of my backup. It says it takes 5 seconds to restore, and then is exactly the same and on factory settings. None of my contacts, settings, etc. are restoring. How can I get an old backup to restore??