iPhone Restore Error 1601 "The iPhone Could Not Be Restored. An Unknown Error Occurred."

Restoring my iPhone was necessary the other day, it was acting weird after an update to a program and I simply wanted to restore my phone and just start from scratch. The problem that I ran into was during the restore operation iTunes gave me the following error code"

1601: The iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred.

The error essentially locked my phone and I couldn't do anything to the device, so I started trouble shooting with my computer and iTunes. This guide will give you a rundown of the steps I took to correct the 1601 error with my iPhone.

First step I took was to reboot my PC and make sure that the iPhone was connected properly to my PC with the USB cable. Just as a test make sure you try a few different USB ports when you try to restore the phone. This isn't likely to help resolve the issue but it's possible.

The next step is to uninstall and reinstall all of the applications on your PC that work with iTunes and your iPhone to make sure there isn't some sort of problem with any of the software. Follow these steps to remove all Apple software from your PC.

1 - Click Start
2 - Click Control Panel
3 - Click Programs and Features (Windows XP it will be Add/Remove Programs)
4 - Click iTunes
5 - Click Uninstall (let it uninstall then move on to next software program)
6 - Click QuickTime (if it's installed, if it's not skip to next program)
7 - Click Uninstall (let it uninstall then move on to next software program)
8 - Click Apple Software Update (if it's installed, if it's not skip to next program)
9 - Click Uninstall (let it uninstall then move on to next software program)
10 - Click Bonjour (if it's installed, if it's not skip to next program)
11 - Click Uninstall (let it uninstall then move on to next software program)
12 - Click Apple Application Support (if it's installed, if it's not skip to next program)
13 - Click Uninstall (let it uninstall then move on to next software program)
14 - Reboot your PC

Once all of this software is uninstalled from your PC and the reboot has been completed then you will want to logon and reinstall iTunes, the newest version, get it HERE. Once iTunes is reinstalled you will want to reboot your PC again.

Now try to restore you iPhone, it should work with no problems. Typically the problem that causes this error is a glitch in the iTunes software and reinstalling it helps solve the problem. My phone restored no problem once I did a complete reinstall of all of the iTunes software.