iTunes cannot read contents of iPhone. Help please

[dangerousmouse]

Just plugged my iPhone 4 into my pc for the first time since I updated to the latest iOS.

I updated the iPhone on a friends macbook, and have downloaded etc... quite heavily since. Also got a fair amount of emilas and text messages that I would quite like to save.

However, when I plugged it into my pc I was presented with this message
"iTunes cannot read the contents of iPhone "NAME" Go to the summary tab in iPhone preferences and click restore to restore this iPhone to factory settings."

Now, I'm looking for one of two solutions.
Ideally I would like to get this issue fixed without having to restore the iPhone.
Alternatively, if I were to restore the iPhone, as part of the restore process, will iTunes make a backup of the iPhone and then put all of the data back onto it?
Would that include any apps downloaded since I last performed the backup and update on my friends macbook?

Many thanks.

 

[LOAM]

The same thing happened to me in September and as yet there is no solution other than to reset it and loose everything.

Mine also deleted 200 albums of the pc hdd that needed recovery software to restore. My iPod is pretty much useless now because I simply won't let iTunes anywhere near my pc.