How can I fully restore my iPhone 4S and then selectively restore data?

[DocBox]

Hey there,

I'm one of the many people in the boat where I want (need) to fully wipe and restore my iPhone 4S on 5.1.1, hoping it will fix issues like battery life etc. I've also noticed I still have some leftover jailbreak data in my iPhone's current OS which has stayed there due to me accidentally restoring to a backup that happened while I was jailbroken. I am no longer jailbroken and do not particularly want to jailbreak again. My only issue is there are a few things which I crucially need to keep (in other words, backup and then add back onto the iPhone later). I need to be able to restore:

App Data (Such as game progress and any data my apps have)
Contacts
Notes
Messages (Very important)
Wi-Fi Settings (If that's not possible, it doesn't really matter)
SpringBoard Layout!!! (No idea if this is possible, I have heavily organised folders that would be a great pain to organise again)
Photos (I'm only putting this on this list as I have a question - I understand I can simply copy all my photos using Windows but as for restoring, iPhones seem to randomly name the folders it sorts the Camera Roll into with a jumble of numbers and letters which I'm sure really does mean something. How would I go about restoring photos?)

I've been browsing around the internet, effectively getting incredibly confused and I need some guidance. A guide, in a way, of how to do each step. It's made me wonder about the path of possibly creating my own iPhone backup selectively with all the bits of data I want to preserve - I wonder if there's a way. Anyway, I have a full license for the latest version of iExplorer, which I heard mentioned a lot across the internet, along with iPhone Backup Extractor, MobileSyncBrowser, and DiskAid. I've got no idea what tool to use, or how you're supposed to be able to restore this stuff. Restoring App Data using iExplorer, though, seems like an incredibly easy task, however as for Contacts and the rest, particularly Messages, I have no idea.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Many Thanks,
George Cocks

P.S. I have a Windows 7 64-bit computer, NOT a Mac. This limits me software-wise, I thought it important to mention it.

[Jesse Hollington]

Unfortunately, there is no foolproof or officially supported way to selectively restore data in the way that you're looking for. The default iTunes (or iCloud) restore puts everything back in terms of application data and settings.

There are third-party tools such as MobileSyncBrowser (MobileSyncBrowser | View and Recover your iPhone data) and iBackupBot iBackupBot - iTunes Backup Manager for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) that will allow you to edit the content of your backups prior to a restore, which will effectively allow a selective restore, but you'll need to dig through and fiddle with the backup content quite a bit in these apps to accomplish what you're trying to do, since you'll be dealing with many random preference files. These solutions are a bit more effective if you're only looking to restore specific application data as this is usually pretty well-defined in any official App Store app, but in terms of other preferences and settings -- things like SpringBoard layouts and Wi-Fi settings -- you'd need to know which preferences files to restore and which ones not to. In the end, restoring the wrong files, or not picking up related files when it comes to internal iOS preferences can actually cause more problems than simply restoring a backup from a previously-jailbroken iPhone.

Note that just because you don't want to jailbreak again doesn't mean that you can't restore your previous backup as-is. Depending on what type of apps or system extensions/hacks you were using while jailbroken, you may not have any problems at all, as your backup won't include the jailbroken state or any of your jailbroken apps. The most you'd be left with is either inert preference files for JB apps that no longer exist on your device or iOS preferences that were modified by the JB process. Considering the complexities of doing a selective restore, it's probably worth simply doing a full restore and seeing if you have any problems.

[astroman33]

I've read about, and experienced, that even a full restore may not preserve ALL your layout, folders, etc.

But, it's also my experience that's OK. It will take several hours to get things re-organzied, but it's usually a good time to eliminate apps, change the layout and folders, rethink what one really wants, etc. It can be fun, in fact-- and if you approach it that way, rather than "OMG, my whole set up has been Deep Sixed", you'll be a much happier camper!