How do I completely restore as new iphone then retrieve backup data?

[shinythings]

Hi I was hoping someone would help me with some instructions on how to achieve the following...

1. I'd like to backup all the information on my iphone (address book, photos, apps, calendar info etc)
2. Then I'd like to completely restore/reset my iphone as a 'new phone'
3. Then I'd like to retrieve all my contacts and apps and stuff from the backup I have made.

But I understand that if I backup in itunes first then restore as a new phone, the next time I sync itunes will clear the previous backup in favour of a backup of the new blank iphone data and settings.

If you're wondering why I want to do this (it's all about that annoying thing where you can't clear the previous email addresses in the mail app's cache without a complete restore.) I know it's a bit of a fuss but I really want to get my head around how the iphone/itunes backup procedure works. I'm struggling at the minute.

If anyone could walk me through this, that would be wonderful!

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[steve-p]

When you restore an iPhone in iTunes, it's a two stage process. The first bit (I think because it takes a while) overwrites the phone OS and software and reactivates the phone - this may well be the same as setting up as a new phone. The second part is that you can optionally restore data from a backup. So it might be that if you simply restore it and allow it to restore the data afterwards it will do what you want.