Symptoms

When you sync an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a Windows computer, one or more of the following alerts may appear:

• "The [device] could not be synced. A folder was specified instead of a file."
• "The contents of the iPhone could not be read. You must restore the iPhone"
• The "Set up your iPhone" prompts may reappear after each time you reconnect the device, even after fully setting up the device's sync options.

The steps below may resolve the issue.