ITunes consistently thinks my iPhone is a new phone and wants to set up as new

I have had an iPhone 4S for 4 weeks and have had every other iPhone since 2007. I plug my phone in regularly to my computer and change the content that is synched to it. Something happened yesterday, however, that makes iTunes think it's a new phone every time I plug it in -- instead of the usual media selection tabs at the top, iTunes gives the "Set Up New Phone" dialog with the option to restore a backup. I have restored from my most recent backups, erased and restored, and today even got a replacement from the Apple Store, all to no avail. There is some file on the phone that makes it appear to iTunes as a new phone and it won't give up.
I have now restored from an October 14th backup and I get the options back, but obviously lose a good bit of stuff that I'd really like to have had. It has been escalated through AppleCare to engineers, but it could take a couple days to hear from them. Thoughts are welcomed and I'm not afraid to get messy with some files :-)

Do you mean that you bought a new iPhone and are trying to sync it with iTunes, or that you restored your iPhone and are trying to set it up as a new phone? In either case, iTunes will recognize the phone as being new. If you actually bought a new iPhone, you can't change how iTunes recognizes the phone. There is no personal data on the phone because it's new, so it will need to be set up as a new phone with iTunes.
If you restored your iPhone and chose to set it up as a new iPhone, but no longer want to, you will probably be able to go back and choose to restore it from a backup with either iCloud, if you set it up, or iTunes. If not, you can try to do a restore from iTunes if it's available after the phone is set up, or while you're setting it up.
I hope that's not confusing. What exactly are you trying to achieve?
Hope this helps.

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My husband and I have upgraded our phones (iPhone 4s and iPhone 5) to the iPhone 5s. We have given 2 of our kids the "old" phones and want to set them up as an iPod touch. Both kids have email and need to be able to text (iMessage).

My husband and I have upgraded our phones (iPhone 4s and iPhone 5) to the iPhone 5s. We have given 2 of our kids the "old" phones and want to set them up as an iPod touch. Both kids have email and need to be able to text (iMessage).
I have read multiple posts on how to do this and I am still confused.
Apple ID/ICoud:
We want to be able to monitor what they do, but do not want their devices linked to our emails/contacts/etc... Each kid has their own email account. So, from what I have read the best way to do this is to use our family Apple ID, but set them up with a separate iCloud account? Is this correct?
Reset/Restore/DFU:
To start fresh we have done multiple factory resets. I did one that someone said was a DFU and a plan ol' factory reset, etc... Not sure the difference. However, when I do that I get the "hello" screen and am able to start setting the phone up anew. However, when I go to set the phone up as an iPod I end with the same result.
So, here is what I am doing (tell me what I am doing wrong):
Hello Screen
Asks me to select language and selecting: English
Select Your Country or Region: United States
Choose a Wi-Fi Network: select my home wi-fi network
Enter password: entered my home wi-fi network password
Activiate iPhone - wants me to enter Apple ID and Passwordsays that this iphone is currently linked to an Apple ID (k*******@gmail.com). Sign in with the Apple ID that was used to set up this iPhone.
Location Services - I have enabled location services
Set Up iPhone
Set Up as New iPhone
Apple ID
Options are to sign in with your Apple ID or Create a Free Apple ID
Or I could "skip this step"
I signed in with my Apple ID
Terms and Conditions - Agree
iCloud - I can select either to use iCloud or Don't Use iCloud - I selected use iCloud
Find My iPhone - I can select either to use find my iPhone or to not - I selected use find my iphone
Once I do this it says iMessage and FaceTime and shows the following:
my email
my other child's cell phone number
and my husband's work phone number
This is where things do not make sense. I only want the phone set up with the current child's email address. Where did I go wrong?

There are a number of Apple services: iMessage, FaceTime, iCloud, Game center, Find My iPad, etc.
Now, to share apps, music and books you need to have the same Apple ID:
iPad's Settings > iTunes & App Stores > Apple ID > Your purchasing Apple ID.
For the other service, your wife should have her own Apple ID.
All she needs is a valid e-mail address, apply Apple ID below:
https://appleid.apple.com
Here's a limk with useful tips: Note: It's also valid in IOS 6
iOS 5 & iCloud Tips: Sharing an Apple ID With Your Family

The Icon for the apps store and itunes disappeared from my iphone. was told to reset and clear all setting to get them back. After i download the information from my computer to the iphone. I lost 78 itune songs.

Had to reboot iphone, lost 78 itune songs on computer.

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unfortunately, the music feature is currently available in the US only, so if you're located elsewhere, your only option would be to restore the missing files from the backup you surely have created?!

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Hi everyone
Recently, itunes started popping up periodically saying that my iphone is new and asks me to set it up or to restore from backup, but it's not new, this happens both on wifi and when connected via cable, I have no idea why this is happening and don't know how to fix it.
What should I do?

Resetting didn't affect anything.
I haven't done anything different or changed the library. Like any other day, I just took it off of the cradle this morning, went about my business all day and put it back on the cradle when I got home. But now, instead of synching, it says "This computer has previously been synched with an iPhone or anohter iOS device" and wants me to restore from a backup.
The backups it is showing me (there are 4) look suspicious because it says "last backed up: 10/16/2011 8:18 PM" but I set iTunes to back up the phone every time I dock. So something is definitely not right with the backup. Consequently I don't want to restore from backup until I know what happened to the latest backup.

How can i sync my iTunes library from my iPhone with my new mac mini

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The iphone is not a backup device.
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The iphone/ipad/ipod is not a backup/storage device. The sync is one way - computer to iphone/ipad/ipod.
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I have a new email address. Changed this on my itunes account. On iPhone deleted old icloud account and created new with new email. I have set find my phone to on. When I download music it no longer goes to icloud an does not show up on my iphone.

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I have the same problem - it is maddening. I rely on this iPad for work so this is not just an annoyance! The above solutions of changing the appleid on the device or on the website do not work.
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Hi rubicon7,
Welcome to the Support Communities!
The article below may be able to help you with this.
Click on the link to see more details and screenshots.
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
If the issue is not resolved, you may need to uninstall iTunes and all of it's components, and reinstall the latest version as explained in this article:
Issues installing iTunes or QuickTime for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1926
I hope this information helps ....
Have a great day!
- Judy

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You can follow the instructions in the page you linked from: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2109 to transfer everything from your old phone to your new one. If you only want to transfer contacts and you still have your old phone (or if the contacts are already on your computer) you could sync the contacts as described in: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12317
Also, if you still have the old phone you could sync them via iCloud without using a computer: http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/

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If you want you're apps and content on you're iPhone then use you're existing account. If not then create a new account.

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If not this:
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- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost
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ITunes consistently thinks my iPhone is a new phone and wants to set up as new

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