Restore iPhone - itunes keeps freezing

I have been trying since yesterday apporx 2:30pm to restore my iPhone 6s, which I picked up yesterday.

My old phone was last backed up on the 25/9/15 – cannot back up again as this one is dead (dropped in water last week) – cannot be fixed

When I first started the process yesterday, I had a different screen to the screenshot below (the normal one with IOS version & Backup/restore options). The restore started but after 2 hours it said it was still going to take another 7 hours to restore, so I cancel the restore.

I have reset the phone as new again to start from scratch but every time I start, the process, iTunes freezes up. My PC keeps freezing also (and very slow at times) (Windows 10) – task manager says iTunes is not responding.

It seems to be stuck at this point. I press continue but nothing happens (or so it seems). I left it like this for 2 hours last night and but nothing seem to be happening.

http://i.imgur.com/UtWBROb.jpg

Now, iTunes recognizes the phone and recognizes the name of my old phone and has so far installed most of my music but nothing else.

I have connected my two iPads also to test and iTunes also freezes up.

Using current version of iTunes (updated yesterday).

The only two things I really want to restore are: is my notes app (it has some info I need) and photos I took on the old phone.

Phone is also updated to version 9.0.2