Iphone update with itunes deleted photos?

Okay so my brother has an iphone that he had never plugged into itunes before. The phone was becoming slow because he had never updated it. I plugged it into itunes and a messaged popped up saying "back this iphone up to the computer before update? This includes contacts, photos etc." so i clicked okay and then started the update. It was about 45 minutes through the update that my dad accidently cancelled it and we had to start the update again. When it was all finished, my brother opened his phone and all his photos, contacts EVERYTHING was deleted! I tried syncing the phone but nothing was synced back onto the phone: L!
Could the contacts and photos be stored somewhere on the computer prior to the cancelling of the update? Oh and i also tried to restore the back-up and it didn't work!
any help would be much appreciated. I'm not real computer smart so please help!

I think Your backup files has not been finished when cancelled it. So iTunes can read the backup files.
Some 3rd party iPhone Tool can read and recover them.http://www.datarecoveryforiphone.com/ios-data-recovery.html. They provide online help.

If it works, can you give me the best answer?