Why is it impossible to restore from a backup?

[Windows Central Question]

I bought a new Lumia 735 (because the old phone's LCD broke and leaked all over the phone after falling a few centimeters onto a soft floor) and am trying to restore it from a back up that was made.

I go through the process... I reset the phone's settings, I sign into Windows Live and I select the backup.

It then tells me "Verify your identity" in which it wants to text or call the new phone with a code. Great. One problem. The phone hasn't finished setting up so it can't receive sms or calls and according to all the resources online this is the only way to restore from back up.

What's the point of having a backup if you can't restore it??

How do I get around this?

Can I get around this?

Have you lost all the information in the backup forever because there's no way to get that info onto a computer and restore the phone from the computer like you can with other phones??

 

[TechFreak1]

Do this, reflash the phone with the windows device recovery tool, go through the steps however to do not sign in yet. Once your at the start screen, got to settings -> back up -> sign-in. This will cause your phone to re-sync and you will get all your text messages and etc back providing you had text message back up on + saved everything to the cloud. However you will need to reinstall all the apps manually, also you may need to keep forcing your Microsoft account / the main account tied to your phone to sync until it shows it is upto date on the email + accounts settings page.

This is why it's best practise to back up weekly, so once a week charge your phone via a PC and whilst doing that move all the data off your phone.