Cannot Restore a Backup to an iPhone - How to Fix The Backup

By: Kelly Heffner Wilkerson
November 22, 2018 at 02:00 PM

If you're getting an error making it so you cannot restore a backup to your iPhone, there are a few possible causes:

We're going to run through the possible solutions to restore an iPhone backup that you cannot currently restore to your iPhone:

This is applicable for all devices: iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

Make sure that the iPhone is plugged directly into the computer, with no USB hubs or extension cables in-between. Hubs and faulty cables can mess up the communication if they're old or faulty. This is also a good time to switch out your iPhone USB cable if you have a spare in case the USB cable is old and faulty.
Reboot the computer you're doing the restore with. This will fix any potential USB system problems.
Reboot the iPhone you're restoring, by holding the top/side (lock) button until a "slide to power off" slider appears. Slide to power off, wait a few moments, and then press the same top/side button to power back on.
The previous solutions work sometimes, but usually if you cannot restore a backup to an iPhone (iPad or iPod Touch), there is an actual error in the backup you're trying to restore. If iTunes is giving you an error that the backup is corrupt or incompatible, 99% of the time, the backup has a bug in it. This is where we come in.

Download our free trial of Decipher Backup Repair to diagnose the errors in the backup. After diagnosing the errors, register Decipher Backup Repair to fix the errors so you can restore the backup in iTunes.

We're really proud of our Decipher Backup Repair program, and we've had many good experiences fixing backups and getting people's precious data back. You can check out our customer reviews for Decipher Backup Repair here.