How does the iPhone backup work in itunes?

Can someone please tell me how the backup is supposed to work in iTunes? Is this an automatic thing when I sync my phone with iTunes, or do I have to manually kick off a backup?

The reason I asked is that my iPhone suddenly gave me the dreaded "itunes can not read the contents of the iPhone..." message.

So, I clicked restore, and it downloaded the iPhone software again, and restored my iPhone back to factory settings.

As I understand, it's supposed to then give me the opportunity to restore my content, such as text messages, settings, etc, but it never gave me that option.

I am not able to find anything in iTunes to kick off a restore. Is there anyway to get my stuff back, or am I hosed?

TEG said:

Under 1.1.4, all settings are stored locally each time. Under 2.0, everything is backed up daily, but it takes 10X longer than it did under 1.1.4.

TEG

Click to expand...

Great, how do I restore from one of the backups?

GregHK88 said:

Right click on the iPhone under Devices tab then chose restore from backup and then which backup file to restore.

Click to expand...

Ok, I must have been doing something wrong because it never automatically bakced up my iPhone, therefore the restore option was not there! Once I did a "manual" backup, I noticed the restore option is now one of the choices when I right click on the iPhone.

Doesn't make sense to me, I thought they automatically backed it up whenever you sync. LOL