Applications missing after sync

I just synced my 3G iPhone and picking it up found 5 pages of apps reduced to only 5 freaking programs. Son of a .fasd;,fl;kasdnb,zcfbss.

I check iTunes in my application section it only shows 5 apps, not the full screen of apps before. God, I just started using the Budget app again finally after a corrupt backup and now iTunes just decided to delete it, losing another month of inputting my spending.

How the hell did this happen. Where does iTunes get off deleting all my apps?

How do I get my apps back. It's not like a have a list of what I purchased on hand. Time to go through my iTunes receipts I guess.

Only thing I can think of was the other day I launched iTunes and it said there was something corrupt. Then it started to regenerating thumbnails for albums. But I didn't expect it to delete all my applications, then delete them off my iPhone.

Only thing it decided to keep was Space Buster, Byline, SimCity, Yelp, and SnapTell. I mean, how the heck did it choose those to keep, some have been on my iPhone for months, yet older stuff is missing, like Vay, etc.

 

Should I just do a restore with a backup or something? Will that bring back all the missing apps? It did do a backup just before syncing. Where exactly to I start the backup, do I choose restore and eventually it will show my my backups?

It's just me. No one else uses my computer, my iPhone never has been synced with another computer, no one has ever used my iTunes on my computer or the account elsewhere. So it's just odd.

So if I just do Restore, it's going to erase everything, then let me select today's backup, right?

I just don't like deleting all the data off my iPhone, like contacts, before even seeing the list of backups or know that the backup is not corrupt like when I tried to do a restore when my iPhone went corrupt months ago.

Why does the manual say: "In iTunes, you can also restore from a backup without deleting data stored on iPhone", yet, choosing restore gives no option besides saying all data will be deleted.

 

Okay, all the apps seem to be in there, how I let iTunes know this. But I really want to use a backup since then I can retrieve all my saved data from these apps. I do have the receipts as a last resort to track down all that I bought.

I looked in perferences and I see a list of backups under the device tab. The backup from today, and oddly two backups from 4 months ago, but I know I've synced plenty of times before today.

How do I start this option the iPhone manual says "In iTunes, you can also restore from a backup without deleting data stored on iPhone," so far the restore button only mentions continuing will delete all data. I want to start from the backup first because I was burned once last time with it being corrupt from a bug in an earlier firmware for the iphone.

Anyone know where the backups are stored so I can make a backup of the backup? Edit, found it, sheesh, 6400 items in a folder, lovely. But only 146 megs, seems small.

Edit: Damn, why didn't the manual just say to right click on the iphone on the left to access an option to restore from a backup, sheesh, they only mention the restore button in the summary tab for using backups. I never think to right click on the left.

 

But the apps were on the iPhone today before the sync, and connecting it to iTunes create a backup first before doing anything to the iPhone, like syncing. After it syncs, it doesn't do another backup. So I would assume that the backup it just did would have the apps since they were deleted after it was created. Right?

Well here's hoping, it's about halfway through the backup. I'll try your suggestion with the apps to get them back in iTunes too, thanks.

Edit: Yep, the backup did not have the apps. What if I install the apps, then did the backup, there's no chance of it restoring the data?

I mean this is the second time I've lost everything. I was so upset that I lost two months of inputing spending for the Budget app that I stoped using it for a several months, only 3 weeks ago did I finally go through the trouble to resetup all the categories and budget and now once again, it's all lost.

And SimCity is still crashing at the logo screen.

 

So, how am I suppose to prevent this from ever happening again. Every time I sync it replaces the backup, then how are you suppose to ever be able to restore the phone with all your data if the sync that ruins the phone also replaces the backup that might have helped?

 

Good news.

The app I was most worried about, Budget. I installed it through the suggested method of double clicking the file in my mobile applications folder, adding it back to iTunes. Did a sync to install it, which created a backup. I then did a restore from that backup and the Budget app had all the data I lost. Though, I didn't check to see if was there before running the backup

 

lol, Sorry about that. I think I just kept having updates that I thought would be unseen if I only edited an existing post from a little while ago. I'll be more careful from now on