Hi, I'm new to the forum and hoping that someone can help me help a friend. Sorry if this has been asked and answered in another post, but if so I couldn't find it.
My friend has a 3GS that she has used for a couple years that suddenly went into a recovery mode loop. She has never even connected the phone to a computer, much less updated, backed up, or jailbroken it. It failed while she was on a trip so she got a new iPhone 4 from AT&T, but unfortunately she always used the 3GS as her primary address book, so it is full of business and personal contacts that she reallly needs. I have already chastised her thoroughly for not backing it up and have showed her how to sync the new one.
The bottom line is that we just need a way to get the contacts - in any format - off the old phone, one time. We don't necessarily care if it ever even works again.
I am the most tech-savvy person she knows here on the island of St. Croix. My background is PC systems and network administration, with a fair amount of (outdated now) software development experience. I remember enough Unix to make many Linux commands familiar, but my Mac skills are almost nonexistent (I do have access to a Mac if necessary). I have spent a week scouring forums and trying various tools (all on my Windows 7 laptop), so far with no luck. Here is a summary (I apologize in advance if any of it is obvious and/or dumb):
1. "Hard" reset always returns to recovery mode (picture of USB cable to iTunes) after a few seconds on Apple logo.
2. RecBoot, iREB, etc. will kick it out of recovery and will also put it into DFU, but it always goes back to recovery mode when restarted.
3. TinyUmbrella finds it but shows a different ECID (with a question mark) every time it starts, and shows Device Model as -INVALID. Save SHSH does nothing (no Saved SHSH listed for device and no files in the save directory.
4. Redsn0w (0.9.9b8) finds the phone and reports a consistent, properly formatted ECID and build (iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293). It seems to successfully Fetch the blobs and create a file, but says Cydia refused them and Verify throws a warning with the file name followed by No blobs found.
5. iRecovery -s connects, but setting auto-boot to true and saveenv has no effect, and printenv, fsboot, and reboot do not work (I might be doing it wrong?). Here is what I get from iRecovery -s:
6. I downloaded iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293.ipsw and used a tool called make_noerase_ipsw to generate an upgrade file, then did Shift+Click Restore in iTunes. This gets past "verifying" and "preparing" and all the way to the point where the phone is at the logo screen with the progress bar, but fails with error 6 after a few seconds. I have tried all of the online suggestions for fixing error 6, but none of them make any difference. I have considered trying this process with the newest build (5.0.1?) but have not done that yet.
I would be happy to do a jailbreak if that would work. I have also begun looking at the ramdisk process, but have not tackled it yet in hopes that there is an easier solution.
My friend owns a dive shop and I'm sure we could arrange some free diving for anyone who can bail us out (and get to St. Croix)!
My friend has a 3GS that she has used for a couple years that suddenly went into a recovery mode loop. She has never even connected the phone to a computer, much less updated, backed up, or jailbroken it. It failed while she was on a trip so she got a new iPhone 4 from AT&T, but unfortunately she always used the 3GS as her primary address book, so it is full of business and personal contacts that she reallly needs. I have already chastised her thoroughly for not backing it up and have showed her how to sync the new one.
The bottom line is that we just need a way to get the contacts - in any format - off the old phone, one time. We don't necessarily care if it ever even works again.
I am the most tech-savvy person she knows here on the island of St. Croix. My background is PC systems and network administration, with a fair amount of (outdated now) software development experience. I remember enough Unix to make many Linux commands familiar, but my Mac skills are almost nonexistent (I do have access to a Mac if necessary). I have spent a week scouring forums and trying various tools (all on my Windows 7 laptop), so far with no luck. Here is a summary (I apologize in advance if any of it is obvious and/or dumb):
1. "Hard" reset always returns to recovery mode (picture of USB cable to iTunes) after a few seconds on Apple logo.
2. RecBoot, iREB, etc. will kick it out of recovery and will also put it into DFU, but it always goes back to recovery mode when restarted.
3. TinyUmbrella finds it but shows a different ECID (with a question mark) every time it starts, and shows Device Model as -INVALID. Save SHSH does nothing (no Saved SHSH listed for device and no files in the save directory.
4. Redsn0w (0.9.9b8) finds the phone and reports a consistent, properly formatted ECID and build (iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293). It seems to successfully Fetch the blobs and create a file, but says Cydia refused them and Verify throws a warning with the file name followed by No blobs found.
5. iRecovery -s connects, but setting auto-boot to true and saveenv has no effect, and printenv, fsboot, and reboot do not work (I might be doing it wrong?). Here is what I get from iRecovery -s:
iRecovery - Recovery Utility
by westbaer
Thanks to pod2g, tom3q, planetbeing, geohot and posixninja.
Found iPhone/iPod in Recovery mode
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on FMI0:CE0
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on FMI1:CE8
=======================================
::
:: iBoot for n88ap, Copyright 2010, Apple Inc.
::
:: BUILD_TAG: iBoot-889.24
::
:: BUILD_STYLE: RELEASE
::
:: USB_SERIAL_NUMBER: CPID:8920 CPRV:15 CPFM:03 SCEP:03 BDID:00 ECID:000002
417606C32F IBFL:01 SRNM:[8602393JEDG]
::
=======================================
[FTL:MSG] Apple NAND Driver (AND) RO
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on MI0:CE0
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on FMI1:CE8
[FTL:MSG] FIL_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] BUF_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FPart Init [OK]
read new style signature 0x43313133 (line:405)
[FTL:MSG] VSVFL Register [OK]
[FTL:MSG] VFL Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] VFL_Open [OK]
[FTL:MSG] YAFTL Register [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FTL_Open [OK]
Boot Failure Count: 0 Panic Fail Count: 1
Entering recovery mode, starting command prompt
dialog_read_adc timeot, MUX_SEL=2
limiting USB input current to 100 mA
]
by westbaer
Thanks to pod2g, tom3q, planetbeing, geohot and posixninja.
Found iPhone/iPod in Recovery mode
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on FMI0:CE0
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on FMI1:CE8
=======================================
::
:: iBoot for n88ap, Copyright 2010, Apple Inc.
::
:: BUILD_TAG: iBoot-889.24
::
:: BUILD_STYLE: RELEASE
::
:: USB_SERIAL_NUMBER: CPID:8920 CPRV:15 CPFM:03 SCEP:03 BDID:00 ECID:000002
417606C32F IBFL:01 SRNM:[8602393JEDG]
::
=======================================
[FTL:MSG] Apple NAND Driver (AND) RO
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on MI0:CE0
[NAND] Found Chip ID 0x3E94D72C8400 on FMI1:CE8
[FTL:MSG] FIL_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] BUF_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FPart Init [OK]
read new style signature 0x43313133 (line:405)
[FTL:MSG] VSVFL Register [OK]
[FTL:MSG] VFL Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] VFL_Open [OK]
[FTL:MSG] YAFTL Register [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FTL_Open [OK]
Boot Failure Count: 0 Panic Fail Count: 1
Entering recovery mode, starting command prompt
dialog_read_adc timeot, MUX_SEL=2
limiting USB input current to 100 mA
]
6. I downloaded iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293.ipsw and used a tool called make_noerase_ipsw to generate an upgrade file, then did Shift+Click Restore in iTunes. This gets past "verifying" and "preparing" and all the way to the point where the phone is at the logo screen with the progress bar, but fails with error 6 after a few seconds. I have tried all of the online suggestions for fixing error 6, but none of them make any difference. I have considered trying this process with the newest build (5.0.1?) but have not done that yet.
I would be happy to do a jailbreak if that would work. I have also begun looking at the ramdisk process, but have not tackled it yet in hopes that there is an easier solution.
My friend owns a dive shop and I'm sure we could arrange some free diving for anyone who can bail us out (and get to St. Croix)!