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iPhone replacement?

1

12centuries

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 8, 2010
6
0
Hello all, this is my first post. A friend of mine gave me his broken(?) 3GS that's still under warranty and I'm wondering about replacement options. He went to Florida to vacation for a month, and his 3GS stopped working. So he went to an Apple store and bought a new iPhone 4. Not an upgrade or a swap, just bought a new one.

When he returned, he said I could have his old one. It's still under warranty until February. Basically, it doesn't turn on. If you plug it in, the Apple logo shows up, then it switches to a USB cable pointing at an iTunes logo. So I loaded iTunes, and it tries to restore it, but after many minutes, the following message popped up:

The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (1604)

Here's my question: Does my friend need to take it into the Apple store, or is that something I can do? I actually don't have an iPhone or an AT&T account, and I'm sure he doesn't want the 3GS reactivated.

How would you suggest I go about getting this swapped out, assuming that's an option.

Thanks!
 
So there's no problem with the warranty transferring to another person? Is it really that easy? Walk in, tell them I was given the phone, and they should replace it?

If so, that's about 1000x better than HP's replacement method.
 
I wouldn't necessarily say that somebody gave you the phone straight up like that. I would explain the problem of the phone just stopped working out of the blue. I would assume you have ATT? Anyway, the warranty transfers from person to person. As long as the device is under warranty, your good to go. Just hope there is no water damage......then you'll have some problems:)
 
I don't have AT&T. The original owner does, however. No water damage that I can see. The indicator near the port is white, and the headphone jack looks mostly good as far as I can tell.

I've been told that it might go easier if I go when they're particularly busy. Hmm, I wonder when that would be...
 
12centuries said:
I don't have AT&T. The original owner does, however. No water damage that I can see. The indicator near the port is white, and the headphone jack looks mostly good as far as I can tell.

I've been told that it might go easier if I go when they're particularly busy. Hmm, I wonder when that would be...
Click to expand...

Lol from when they open in the am....to closing time at night....

I would tell them your phone just stopped working out the blue....and hope for the best. They might ask why your sim is not in there......(although non of their business) I would buy a cheap $15 to go sim and pop it in there just so it can say att on top and to avoid headaches. They should swap with no issues though since there is no evidence of water damage.
 
Well that was just about the easiest thing in the world.

I stopped in, one of the employees made a "genius bar" appointment for by taking my name and email address. About fives minutes later, a tech called me over and I told him the phone stopped working and restore wouldn't work. He then tried to restore it and couldn't, checked the warranty status and gave me another. Then I left.

Easy as eating pancakes.

Thanks, guys!
 
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