Lost everything in a 'restore'. Any ideas on how to get it back?

Question

So my iPhone was terrible after the OS4 update, with the battery problem and a couple of other issues. A big consensus was to reinstall and 'restore' the phone. So I did. iTunes backed the phone up then proceeded to reinstall the OS. Half way thru installing, it stopped and said Error -9. I tried again, got the same error. So I read up on the support page to see what it meant and it suggested a restart and try another USB port, which I did. The reinstall then worked. It then went to restore from the backup, and it said it couldn't do it, and to try from another computer. Which is ridiculous, since they're only synced to one iTunes, aren't they?!
Either way, after 7 failed attempts (with restarts of the mac and phone, different USB etc etc), I just thought I'd try the phone for a bit to see how it was running, and to see what's gone/changed.
Well, the battery seems to be better, but I've lost EVERYTHING. All my photos and video taken with the phone, all my stats, all my work expenses (really really really important), music.. the lot.
Is there any way at all, of getting this stuff back, without iTunes wrecking it all again? I don't want to plug the phone in to restore again, incase it overwrites/erases that last back up, and then everything is gone.
To make matters worse, my mac is playing up something chronic (freezing every 30 seconds, for 30 seconds), and an OS reinstall hasn't fixed it, so the next step is a clean wipe and install, but I don't want to loose the phone stuff before I do it!! So not the best Apple experience I've had for a long time!!

Answer 1

I'm not entirely sure on this one. But the same thing occurred with my dad's iPhone. We had already backed it up every other time we synced, so when we tried to restore again it just restored from the backup. If iTunes just won't fix it, i'm afraid you have lost everything unless you have a Mac and backed up iTunes on Time Machine of something. Either way, I think you are kind of doomed. Try restoring again.