Iphone 4s trying to restore contacts from old iphone via itunes backup

Question

I recently upgraded my old iphone 3gs to a 4s. I know way behind the times. I backed up the 3gs to both the icloud and to my mac via itunes before I went to the store. Next day all my contacts are gone, try to sync to the icloud only to find out the they must of overwrote my icloud contacts via a backup from the 4s some how. Again think no problem I will just restore via itunes, when I restore though it starts up like it is brand new asking how I would like to set it up. I choose via itunes and it asks me to connect to itunes. I am already connected and the screen doesn't change on the 4s no matter how long I wait. I desperately need these contacts and am looking for some help either using itunes are getting more creative by manually pulling them out of the backup some how. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

One thing to try, is to create a new login account on you computer.
Log into that account and open address book.
Create one contact in address book.
Now open itunes.
Once through the initial setup, connect the iphone.
Now go to the info tab and check to sync contacts.
You should get the option to merge data.
If this works, there is still something corrupt in your address book.
Try exporting all you contacts then delete all out of address book.
Quit address book and reopen.
Create a new test contact, then try syncing with iphone.
Hope this helps.