"Recovered" from SWOD but now iTunes thinks my device is new... need some advice

[cren110]

This morning I started syncing some new music to my ipod and it went into the SWOD. I was able to fix it by looking through the forums and ultimately fixing my com.apple.SpringBoard.plist after having it get corrupted by intelliscreen.

I have a lot of apps loaded, so I don't want to lose them in the process of getting sync working again. Whenever I plug my ipod in, it asks if I want to restore from a backup or set up a new device. I want to restore it from a backup, but don't want to lose anything, so I'm afraid to push this button without having an entire backup of my ipod or chatting with someone who has had a similar problem in the past.

Basically I have a few questions:
1) How does the sync partnership work? How does it know my device is my device and can be synced with that computer? If I can change a value in a plist file, that'd be great... I don't want to restore or setup a new device if possible. I'd like to be able to change 1 value somewhere and have it working. One thing that I noticed is the devicename for my ipod on the backup files for itunes is iPod and my device name on my ipod itself is Chris's iPod. I'm wondering if changing the devicename on the ipod will fix this problem.

2) How does setting a device up as new work? Will it erase my apps? Will it just simply copy my music and videos and podcasts over? Will it wipe everything?

3) How does the restore work...not restore from the dfu mode or anything.. it looks like my latest backup was at 12:33 today, so maybe I can just click that and it will restore my contacts and settings and notes? Or will it go ahead and delete everything off the phone, reinstall the current firmware..etc?

Any knowledge you guys have to share would be appreciated... I watch this forum every day and have seen a lot of great posts :-) thanks!!

[Eurisko]

1) when you first sync your device, it creates a pairing file (much like SSH generates a pairing key) to identify your device. This information (on a Mac) is stored in ~/Library/Lockdown, changing the name will make no difference as the pairing is based on your Library information.

2) Setting device up as new skips the "restore from backup" option, that's all.

3) Restore from backup will copy your mail, springboard preferences, SMS, Notes, Contacts and Call Log back to your phone. It doesn't affect applications or iPod contents.

[cren110]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet worked perfectly dude!!!! Thanks!!!! I was really scared that it would delete my apps or do something weird, but just like you said all it restored was settings and document data.

[Neo-Tech]

It's a shame that it doesn't restore your music, but if you are going to backup your music on your iPod I recommend you CopyTrans

[bhz1]

You can put your music back on though. iTunes will tell you something like the iphone/ipod being synced with a different library, do you still want to sync? Your iphone/ipod will be erased and the contents replaced wiht the contents of the library on your PC or mac. (which is the library you want anyway).