Extracting important data from "Recovery Looped" iPhone 3GS

[jamandtoast]

Hey all.

I'm having a serious problem at the moment with my iPhone 3GS, running PwnageTools 4.2 jailbroken firmware, with the 6.15 baseband. Up until now, I haven't had a single problem with it.

What's happened is that my phone has been locked into Recovery Mode. No matter what I do, it will not re-initialize into normal mode so I can back up my data.

This wouldn't be a huge issue normally, since I've backed up everything every day. All my contacts, music, pictures, etc. are fine. But, I just had an important interview with someone that I've been trying to get into contact with for a very long time. This is basically a one-shot interview and they wont be able to give me a do-over for months and months.

It's also very time-sensitive, since I need to write up a report. Unfortunately, after the interview, and as I was walking home, the iPhone decided to do this recovery-loop thing. All I was doing was listening to music with it - something I do all the time - when I heard the audio glitch out and saw the device reboot. Of course the damned thing would die as soon as I have important data on it, right? I never even had a chance to transfer it back to my computer.

So far I have:
- used Redsn0w 0.9.7b6 to boot it into "Tethered" mode, to see if it was a kernel issue (it attempts to boot tethered, stops, and goes back into RM)
- used TinyUmbrella in an attempt to boot it out of recovery mode (it attempts to boot normally, then reboots into Recovery again)
- tried using stuff like iFunbox and PodtoPC (it doesn't detect the phone)
- tried using various programs on both my Mac and PC

At this point I don't care if I have to wipe my phone after, I just want that interview off of my iPhone before doing it. I'll worry about re-flashing my phone after I get that file off.

Is there ANY way to get that file off? I don't care about anything else. It was recorded using the Voice Recorder built-in app in iOS, so I'm assuming it's a standard audio file.

Thanks for reading.

[seann33uk]

just a random
Try ibooty see if it just needs a kick in to the tethering mode (not sure if its same as redsn0w tether boot)

[jamandtoast]

Tried iBooty. It either sticks into DFU mode even after a "Success" or it claims success and then boots into recovery. The Firmware being used is of the Untethered variety, using PwnageTool 4.2 on iOS 4.2.1.

EDIT: I just tried using Tetheredboot as well. I used the command "tetheredboot.exe -i <path to iBSS> -k <path to kernelcache> and used the correct 3GS versions for 4.2.1. Upon a successful upload, it has a kernel panic upon attempting to boot. I'm trying to re-make the custom firmware in PwnageTools 4.2 so I can use the iBSS and kernelcache from there.

EDIT2: Tetheredboot worked better with the custom iBSS and kernelcache from the custom .ipsw. Unfortunately, it apparently seemed to boot fully, and then simply reboots automatically into recovery mode. Does this mean the entire partition is corrupt? I'm not sure what's going on anymore. Even forcing a tethered boot with a clean kernel image isn't working.

Any more suggestions?

Nobody?

[Pheonix7even]

Try this it's called iReb what it does is reset your auto boot files I've never tried it on redsnow but it should still work good luck
iH8sn0w.com | Jailbreak your iPod touches and iPhones

[jamandtoast]

Didn't work... Sigh. It looks like there is no way of getting your data off of an iPhone stuck like this.

This is really poor design on Apple's part. The NAND shouldn't be locked down at the OS-level, and you shouldn't have to wipe the User partition every time you do an OS upgrade. Such poor, poor design. I'm never trusting my iPhone with anything important again - either it gets immediately uploaded to a secure location or I use another device.