You just took your new iPhone 7 out of the box, started the restore process, and the iCloud restore failed. You tried it again, and it failed again. All your iPhone says is “Cannot Restore Backup”. In this article, I’ll explain why your iPhone says “Cannot Restore Backup”, why the iCloud restore process failed, and how to fix an iPhone 7 that won’t restore from an iCloud backup.
Why Does My iPhone Say “Cannot Restore Backup” When I Try To Restore With iCloud?
Your iPhone 7 says “Cannot Restore Backup” and won’t restore from iCloud because the version of iOS that shipped with the iPhone 7 is older than the version of iOS that made the iCloud backup. 
But My Old iPhone And New iPhone Are Running iOS 10, Right?
Yes — and no. The iPhone 7 ships with iOS 10.0, but Apple pushed out a minor update since the iPhones were preloaded with the software in China. My iPhone, and a lot of others, are running iOS 10.0.1. And that 0.1 is enough to wreak havoc with the iCloud restore process.
How To Fix An iPhone 7 That Won’t Restore From An iCloud Backup
- Connect your iPhone 7 to a computer running iTunes.
- Put your iPhone 7 into DFU mode. Read my tutorial about how to DFU restore an iPhone to find out how.
- Restore your iPhone 7 using iTunes.
- Restore from your iCloud backup.
That’s right — all you need to do is update your iPhone 7 to the latest version of iOS and the problem resolves itself. Now that both your old and new iPhone are running iOS 10.0.1, the restore process should run smoothly.
Enjoy Your New iPhone 7 — iCloud Restored!
There’s a lot to like about the new iPhone, and I’m sure that you, like me, are looking forward to diving in and trying out all the new features. We’ve updated your iPhone 7 and the iCloud restore process works the way it should — no more “Cannot Restore Backup” message for you! If you have any questions or thoughts to share, feel free to leave a comment below.
Hi, i have the same problem, can’t restore backup from iCloud on my iPhone 7, finally use UltData to resolve it. It is able to recover lost data from iCloud backup. WORKS TO ME, so I share it with you. Hopw it works.
just use ultdata restore or extract itunes backup on computer
My new iPhone has been like like for 2 hours now… I’ve tried following the instructions above but it’s not working! Help!
I have put my iphone 7 on restore , it is been 3 days its still showing restoring iphone any there is other problem that i have lost lots of images most of my images are not showing in the photo library so what shoud i do.