Can I restore and resync from Iphone 3GS to PC

Question

I recently had my main HDD fail so replaced it and reformatted PC. Upon reinstalling Itunes and autherising my Iphone with the new itunes and transfering purchases to the new library I cant remove apps ans when attempting to sync phone i get a msg saying that everything will be deleted and replaced by the new library. Would this cause the loss of everything that i have on my phone or just replace the same apps with the newly created library. Had very similar problem before and when I tried to restore i lost everything as it wiped out my entire phone.
any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Have you also re-authorized your computer with your iTunes account with iTunes?
If so, with your iPhone connected and without syncing, at the iTunes menu bar go to File and select Transfer Purchases From - the name of your iPhone.
If a 3rd party app does not transfer from your iPhone to your iTunes library on your new HD, you can re-download the app with iTunes on your computer and you won't be charged again for a purchased app as long as you use the same iTunes account to re-download the app that was used to purchase the app originally.
In regards to iTunes content, an iPhone can be synced or manually managed with an iTunes library on a single computer only, and photos can be transferred from a single computer only. When transferring iTunes content and photos from another computer, all iTunes content and photos that were transferred from a different computer will be erased from your iPhone first.
After installing a new HD, your computer is detected as a new or different computer by your iPhone.
If you copied your iTunes named folder (which stores your iTunes library) to your computer's backup and placed the copy in the same location on your new HD with iTunes quit when doing so, your iPhone should not be erased of any iTunes content when syncing your iPhone with iTunes with the new HD.