Some backup and restore questions? I have connectivity problems and I suspect the latest firmware version 5.1.1 is the source. I think it's impossible to revert back to the previous firmware, but my last backup was from before the update so I have an idea and two questions:


If I restore from the pre-5.1.1 backup will the firmware be also restored, i.e., to pre-5.1.1?
If this is the case, and the problem was indeed caused by 5.1.1, then I would like to stay at that point in the update cycle, at least until 5.1.2 (or whatever). The question is: would I have first been able be able to backup my phone in its current state without affecting the pre-5.1.1 backup, and then (with the above restore done) restore, for instance, the videos and any other things not on iCloud, while leaving the firmware. (In other words, is there any way to cherry-pick parts of backups, as I would be trying to get the firmware from one backup and the content from another?)


EDIT: Should have said, it's an iPhone 4S.
Backups only contain your data, not the firmware. If you restore a device that's been upgraded to a new OS version from an older backup, you keep the new OS version. (This is, in part, because this is how iOS upgrades used to work: backup, wipe-and-install, then restore.)

It's actually pretty difficult (but not entirely impossible) to talk an iOS device into downgrading to an older version of iOS.

To your second question, I'm not certain of the degree to which you can cherry-pick what to restore from a backup. I've never attempted to do so, as I'm usually interested in restoring the entire previous device state. I imagine that it would be straightforward (if time-consuming) to simply restore everything to the device then remove what you don't want.