[julianwan]

Hi guys and gals,

My iPhone has gone berserk. Completely berserk.

It's a long story. Names changed. If you have no interest in the story but could still offer some help, skip down to the bold and big text saying "oh god please help me I'm poor".

First, a preface.
Last November (2008), me and 3 other friends from my college took a road trip from California to Las Vegas. My roommate's girlfriend drove us, and me, my roommate, and our friend Jimmy had some testosterone flowing, so we dragged Vanessa (my roommate's girlfriend) to a really seedy strip club. No class, really. Anyway, she went to the restroom and dropped her phone in the strip club toiled, a 16GB iPhone 3G. She came back to our table from the restroom in tears, but we (thinking we were smart) assured her that there was no reason to worry and just not to touch the phone for a few days then try to turn it back on...

Back in Santa Barbara, 1 week out of communication with Vanessa, I get a call from her. She's ecstatic, her phone is back on and running with only one misfortune: her camera doesn't work, but she doesn't care, everything else about the phone is operational.

Okay now to my problem.

Me and some other friends decided to go swimming one day after a few beers on the beach. Bad idea. My buddy Ben jumped in the ocean with his 16GB iPhone 3G in his pocket. The thing was dead. I told him my Vanessa story, and he, in tears, handed me his phone and between sobs gasped *fix it*.

Well he got another iPhone the next day after he sobered up, and just told me to keep the 'dead' phone. I put it on a shelf until about a month ago, when I realized it was there and went to turn it on... it totally worked!!! I could use his camera even!

I was so excited, because it was mine, and better than my 8GB iPhone 3G that the first thing after I played around with the phone was "erase all content and settings" which took, as expected, two hours.

oh god please help me I'm poor

First, the iPhone was never jail-broken or used on any network besides AT&T

Finally I connected to iTunes to restore the phone up to 2.2.1. Unfortunately, there was an error... 1601 and then 1611. I tried restoring NO LESS than 20 times, still these errors. This was both in restore mode and DFU mode (I know the difference).

I tried restoring to EVERY iPhone 3G firmware release, even the 3.0 beta build, and most times i tried to restore I would get the error while the screen still only showed the apple icon, for 2.2.1 and 3.0 beta the restore bar would show up empty and never progress, finally giving me an error.

So then I tried to use iRecovery, which worked! The phone booted into the emergency call screen though, but putting a valid SIM CARD (Always on AT&T) didn't give me service, and the phone wouldn't activate past the emergency call screen. When the phone was activated like this, through iRecovery, it would never be recognized in iTunes.

I tried re-installing iTunes to different versions...
I borrowed Vanessa's PC (I run a mac)
I switched back and forth between the USB drivers for 10.5.6 and 10.5.5 a LOT
I finally made the error of using the -f command after iRecovery in terminal and moving the iBSS211.dfu file onto the iPhone, which for a while was a bit exciting because I thought by changing something I was fixing something.

Now I realized that was for iPod Touch and not iPhone.
God, so now this phone is acting even crazier.

Currently the phone is only giving me the error (23). When the phone is attached via usb to my computer in recovery mode, the serial number doesn't show up, even though it used to when it gave me the 16** errors.

If I detach the phone from a usb powered cord, it will shut off and not turn on, whereas before it would stay on.

When attempting to restore in DFU mode, the screen on the iPhone turns white while iTunes is "preparing iphone for restore". Sometimes while in DFU mode I get the 2001 error.

In the next two posts I'll deliver the iRecovery stats of my possessed phone.

Also, I realize this is a huge post with some info lacking (I may have forgotten some stuff so I'll edit it later...), and really appreciate you helping me. I'll send, via paypal, $10 to the person who solves this (if solvable), sorry not more, I'm poor. Well maybe more, I mean, I just want this solved, and ... PLEASE HELP!

=======================================
::
:: iBoot for n82ap, Copyright 2008, Apple Inc.
::
:: BUILD_TAG: iBoot-385.49
::
:: BUILD_STYLE: RELEASE
::
:: USB_SERIAL_NUMBER: CPID:8900 CPRV:30 CPFM:03 SCEP:04 BDID:04 ECID:000001ABEC151D4E SRNM:[*removed by OP*]
::
=======================================

[FTL:MSG] Apple NAND Driver (AND) RO
[NAND] Device ID 0xb655d7ec
[NAND] BANKS_TOTAL 4
[NAND] BLOCKS_PER_BANK 8192
[NAND] PAGES_PER_BANK 1048576
[NAND SECTORS_PER_PAGE 8
[NAND] BYTES_PER_SPARE 128
[FTL:MSG] FIL_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] BUF_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FPart Init [OK]
read old style signature 0x43303034 (line:286)
[FTL:MSG] VFL Register [OK]
[FTL:MSG] VFL Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] VFL_Open [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FTL Register [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FTL_Open [OK]
Boot Failure Count: 0 (sometimes this is 8 or 12) Panic Fail Count: 0
Radio failed to respond.
Radio failed to respond.
Pinging Radio Faile
Entering recovery mode, starting command prompt
] (Recovery) iPhone$

and the last part:

(Recovery) iPhone$ printenv
config_board = 'n82ap'
loadaddr = '0x9000000'
boot-command = 'fsboot'
bootdelay = '0'
idle-off = 'true'
boot-device = 'nand0'
boot-partition = '0'
boot-path = '/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernelcaches/kernelcache.s5l8900x' (the only visible file under this directory on my computer is /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernelcaches/kernelcache.D2164C0B)
display-color-space = 'RGB888'
display-timing = 'optC'
image-version = '0x3'
framebuffer = '0xfd00000'
secure-boot = '0x1'
radio-error = '0x200'
radio-error-string = 'Communication failure'
cmd-results = 'Communication faiure'
? = '0x0'

please, someone help me, i've read all the other forums and to no avail

[redcard]

I don't know about anyone els, but I didn't bother reading past the first couple of lines.

Seriously. If you want help, tell us what the problem is, we don't need to read a bunch of bullcrap studenty twatness

[mobsta]

Download the iphone 3g software firmware and shift restore to it i diid the same thin in the 1.1.1 days

[julianwan]

Originally Posted by redcard

I don't know about anyone els, but I didn't bother reading past the first couple of lines.

Seriously. If you want help, tell us what the problem is, we don't need to read a bunch of bullcrap studenty twatness

I guess you really didn't read past the first couple of lines, especially the part about skipping the bullcrap studenty twatness...

Originally Posted by mobsta

Download the iphone 3g software firmware and shift restore to it i diid the same thin in the 1.1.1 days

I've shift restored trying to use every released iPhone 3G firmware in both recovery and DFU modes, I've even tried a custom restore (made through pwnage) of 2.2.1

Thanks though...

[threefivefive]

I'm having very similar problems... I'm beginning to wonder if it may have something to do with the fact I'm running an earlyish seed of 10.6, which might, I guess, have similar DFU bugginess to 10.5.6? Not having fully investigated the issue yet I don't actually know what the buggy issues were - could well be the USB drivers you mentioned, in which case this post is irrelevant lol!

The only reason I mentioned anything was because a few times whilst trying to restore I noticed the iPhone skip out of DFU and into recovery mode during 'preparing for restore', and just don't recall that ever happening previously, though I may just not have been looking!!

Heh, on subject of liquid damage, my 2G 4GB (procured from the US so I could have one a month before everyone else here) was only 3 days out of its box when I accidentally drowned it in my cup of tea... thought all was lost till it sprang back to life 5 weeks later

[IvanPK]

Make sure to have updated to iTunes 8.2 and the latest OS X Firmware. 10.5.7.
Use DFU Mode and attempt to 'option-restore' a clean copy of 3.0 onto the iPhone.

"I switched back and forth between the USB drivers
for 10.5.6 and 10.5.5 a LOT" UPDATE to 10.5.7, it fixes that DFU error that was in 10.5.6.
I think messing with iRecovery mighta f'ed it up