Syncing Data from Old iPhone 4 to new computer OS X.5.8 w/iTunes 10.6.3

I had previously successfully accomplished this with the great info at: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141 wjosten, thanks! Was not allowed to reply to that thread though.

I now have the same two devices (but w/ a fixed and reformated hard drive in the macbook pro), and I am getting an error message at the step selecting 'Restore from Backup". Error message says "iTunes could not restore the iPhone "iPhone" because an error occurred."

I notice when I click "Restore from Backup" the phone says for about 2 seconds "Restore in progress"; Then one second later it says "Restore Complete"; Then I get the above mentioned error message; then the phone restarts itself.

Any ideas?

P.S. when iTunes asks me to download the new software for my phone 6.1 or 6.2, I say no because I'm afraid it's going to try to reformat my phone.