Another Pwnage bricked iPhone sad story

[jbaugh]

Upon upgrading my wife and I to 3g iPhones, we gave my daughter the old iPhone to use basically as an iPod Touch.

My daughter proceeded to modify the iPhone with the Pwnage Tool software. In this she was successful. Then she got cold feet and decided to restore the original settings. Unfortunately, she did not understand how to do this. She ran Bootneuter and made some modification before trying to restore the iPhone under iTunes.

Now we have an iPhone that will start up with the pineapple logo showing briefly and then immediate switch to the "restore" mode (a screen with a cartoon of Steve Jobs holding his hands up with non-English text in a balloon). Innumerable attempts to restore the original Apple firmware on multiple macs and on Windows have been unsuccessful. Likewise, attempts to "fix" things by running Pwnage Tool and attempting re-install all give the same error message in iTunes.

Is this a totally lost cause? I have entertained some vestige of hope since the phone is not totally dead. It does power up and switch into the Pwnage restore mode. I suspect that whatever my daughter did with Bootneuter has damaged essential boot files?

Any ideas or thoughts will be appreciated. I suspect there are many others out there with the same or similar sad stories of bricked iPhones.

Thanks,
John

[Hansr]

Using Pwnage you can not brick your iPhone you can always get it working again, at worst in DFU mode.

Try going down to 1.1.4 and then again up to 2.0?

http://iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1504

[jeckybaugh]

Okay my dad was the one who posted about Sad iphone story. I am now stuck on the emergency call screen. What do I need to do?

[jeffmc]

Okay my dad was the one who posted about Sad iphone story. I am now stuck on the emergency call screen. What do I need to do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTcKMZfyfk


put it in DFU mode then re-pwn

[aneks]

i had the same problem. It would pineapple and then restart and back to pineapple.

I re pwned it, forced it into DFU then quit Pwnage as instructed. Plugged into itunes and it gave me the phone in recovery mode message. I then did a restore with Apple official firmware and got a working 2.0 but it was locked and in emergency mode. So maybe where you are at.

I then did a pwn and used expert mode ON ANOTHER MAC, didn't change anything but used expert mode and restored to the pwned firmware and now my phone works !

good luck.

[jeckybaugh]

Okay I tried to restore, waited about 1 hr. Went to bed around 11.00 pm, Now
6:30 and still in restoring iPhone software. Is there anything else we can try? Thanks a bunch for the support. Oh also on the iPhone screen shows the apple with it still spinning. I am ready to give up if I fail again. We have been trying to fix it since Saturday. Please help.

[jeffmc]

Okay I tried to restore, waited about 1 hr. Went to bed around 11.00 pm, Now
6:30 and still in restoring iPhone software. Is there anything else we can try? Thanks a bunch for the support. Oh also on the iPhone screen shows the apple with it still spinning. I am ready to give up if I fail again. We have been trying to fix it since Saturday. Please help.

when you plugged it in to kick off the restore, was there something displayed on the screen of the iphone?

[jeckybaugh]

The usb to itunes is displayed. I have tried to restore several times to other versions. I now do not know what version I am at. I know itunes is 7.5.(it was 7.7) I downgraded to 7.5.

[VenomousSVT]

apparently you got the phone back when it was at the emergency screen. If It were me I would run pwnage tool again and make a new ipsw but this time having it activate the phone. Then ii would put it back into dfu mode and restore it in itunes with the ipsw activated firmware. this should get you into the phone fine to use it as an ipod. Personally unless your gonna be trying to use it with another carrier I wouldnt mess with the bootloader at all.

and BTW with the pwnage tool it requires 7.7 so i would get it back to the emergency screen, then update itunes. Then update to your new firmware.

[LSUtigers03]

The usb to itunes is displayed. I have tried to restore several times to other versions. I now do not know what version I am at. I know itunes is 7.5.(it was 7.7) I downgraded to 7.5.

The screen should be completely black. Hold the power button and home button. About a half second after the phone resets let go of the power button and keep holding the home button. Do this while connected to itunes and after a few seconds you'll get a message in itunes.

[jeckybaugh]

It is now downloading 2.0 software. Is that a good sign?

[LSUtigers03]

It is now downloading 2.0 software. Is that a good sign?

Yeah you should be ok after the phone is restored to factory settings you'll be asked if you want to restore one of your backups.

[jeckybaugh]

screen went blank. Apple logo booted back up. It seems to be stuck on preparing iphone for restore. Is there a problem? or Should I just keep it plugged in until it gives me an error message?

[jeckybaugh]

Got an error message 1604. That is a bad sign isn't it. Is this a lost cause? if so I thank you for all your help. please just tell me if you think this is a lost cause if it is. Thanks again

[VenomousSVT]

Got an error message 1604. That is a bad sign isn't it. Is this a lost cause? if so I thank you for all your help. please just tell me if you think this is a lost cause if it is. Thanks again

found this for ya.. this person was having the same 1604 and here is their solution that worked for them

http://www.tolumi.com/iphone-20-coming-back-from-the-1604-error/

[LSUtigers03]

screen went blank. Apple logo booted back up. It seems to be stuck on preparing iphone for restore. Is there a problem? or Should I just keep it plugged in until it gives me an error message?

If the apple logo appeared the the phone didn't go into DFU mode. If you put the phone in DFU mode you won't get errors. If you're using a Mac make sure Classic isn't running.

[jeffmc]

The screen should be completely black. Hold the power button and home button. About a half second after the phone resets let go of the power button and keep holding the home button. Do this while connected to itunes and after a few seconds you'll get a message in itunes.

exactly, there should be NOTHING on the screen, it should appear as though it is off

[jeckybaugh]

unlock iPhone. We are not sure what we did. Trying to restore many times. Finally we got the emergency call screen. Used ziphone numerous time. Boom
every thing worked. Thanks for the support. I am now at 1.1.1, Want to know if upgrading will lock it up again? Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

[bobdobbs]

I've been watching this thread, 'cos I've had the same problem with an iphone for a couple of days.

No matter what I do, I can't seem to get a firmware to take.

When I get home from work, I'll also be trying the solution here:
http://www.tolumi.com/iphone-20-coming-back-from-the-1604-error/

I'll post my results.

[illidian]

The 1604 error can be tricky.

If you Google it, you'll likely find more than a dozen "solutions."

You may have to try them all, unfortunately, until one finally works.

[bobdobbs]

Tricky alright.

I'm quiet curious - Does anyone what know what these error codes actually mean?
Does anyone know what conditions have to present in order for the error to be reported?

I've been searching online, but I haven't found out yet.
The apple documentation on their site gives some solution to iphone errors,
but they don't really spell out exactly what the error means.

Anyway, I'll post back in a while when I've tried to conquer the deadly 1600.

Cheers

[illidian]

Just google the errors for fixes.

[jeckybaugh]

I finally got my iphone to restore and used ziphone to unlock it and activate. Then upgraded back to current 2.0 software. now everything to do with apple apps works but not 3rd party apps. This is so frustrating. :rolleyes:

[jeffmc]

I finally got my iphone to restore and used ziphone to unlock it and activate. Then upgraded back to current 2.0 software. now everything to do with apple apps works but not 3rd party apps. This is so frustrating. :rolleyes:

you are making this way to complicated.

1) download pwnage for whatever operating system you have
2) download the iphone 2.0 firmware
3) put the phone in DFU mode
4) follow the step by step directions in pwnage, it holds your hand the whole way

[bobdobbs]

Just google the errors for fixes.


Different people give different fixes for these errors.
I haven't yet been able to find anywhere near the exact meaning of the errors.
They simply don't seem to be posted anywhere.

I am, and will continue to try the various fixes.
None have worked so far.

I'm sure that I'll get this iphone working again somehow, thanks to the free tools and these kind assistance on these forums.

But I still think that any user is in a more informed, maybe even more powerful position when given the actual meanings of the error messages rather than having to guess at them.

[illidian]

Different people give different fixes for these errors.
I haven't yet been able to find anywhere near the exact meaning of the errors.
They simply don't seem to be posted anywhere.

I am, and will continue to try the various fixes.
None have worked so far.

I'm sure that I'll get this iphone working again somehow, thanks to the free tools and these kind assistance on these forums.

But I still think that any user is in a more informed, maybe even more powerful position when given the actual meanings of the error messages rather than having to guess at them.

The problem is that the same error can mean so many things - that's why there are so many fixes.

It once took me six hours to get my iPhone fixed from 160x errors - keep trying.

[bobdobbs]

The problem is that the same error can mean so many things - that's why there are so many fixes.

It once took me six hours to get my iPhone fixed from 160x errors - keep trying.

I think we are looking at a problem that comes from the iphone being a closed platform.

In this case the user community has a general idea what an 'error 16xx' might mean, and what possible solution paths might fix the situation.

But as far as I can find out, no-one seems to know the exact problem that the error is reporting.

I guess this is just the way the cookie crumbles. We choose a closed platform, so we must accept that we will often be kept in the dark.
Such is life.

After about three days I'm still getting the error. I haven't successfully restored the iphone in question, despite having done several restores before and after with success.

I'll keep trying.

[spyder1720]

I ran into the same error when I tried to pwn my 1st gen 2.0.2 iphone. I tried pretty much everything discussed here and other "solutions" from google researches and nothing worked, until I ran into this:
http://www.tolumi.com/iphone-20-coming-back-from-the-1604-error/

and it finally did the trick for me!!

I basically installed iTunes 7.5 on XP and restore to 1.1.4 finally allowed for a clean restore without any errors and I basically upgraded it back to 2.0.2 on itunes 7.7.1 and it was all good.