iPhone 4 hosed?

mikejp56 · Feb 8, 2013

Hi All,
I have had my iPhone 4 for about 2 months. For the last 2 weeks or so it has been pestering me to update the firmware from 6.0.1 to 6.1. So today after work I connected it to my PC running Windows XP Pro SP3 and iTunes 11.0.1.2. I had backed it up about 2 weeks ago so the backup was fresh.
The first time through iTunes reported a corrupt file download, so I initiated a second try. This time it got past that spot and was doing the update when it reported that the update has failed and I should do a restore.
So I clicked on the Restore button in iTunes, and the process started. About 15-20 minutes through the restore process the progress bars on both the iphone and in iTunes stopped moving. Thinking that iTunes has crashed, I tried to close iTunes, but it says that it is restoring the iphone.
How long should this process take, and if it is really locked up, what can I do to get my phone working again?
Thanks for any help.
Mike

willerz2 · Feb 8, 2013

Are you using a DFU restore? Did you download the IPSW with a non-Internet Explorer browser?

mikejp56 · Feb 8, 2013

Hi willerz2,
I did whatever iTunes asked me to do. I am using FireFox as my default browser, and it went out and downloaded whatever it wanted.
I hate IE, but is this what it needs to run on?

mikejp56 · Feb 8, 2013

Hi All,
The problem is solved! Several steps were involved, but none were too difficult. The hardest part is waiting between steps. Here is what I did:
1) As per f4780y's great tutorial; "TUTORIAL - Failsafe method to restore the current version of IOS", I updated iTunes and downloaded the proper .ipsw file for my phone to my desktop.
2) I put the phone in DFU mode; first time and I hit it.
3) Run iTunes, and when the message about restoring a device in recovery mode comes up, click shift-restore and point to the firmware file.
4) Once the phone is in factory restored condition, I just restored my phone with the last backup that I performed (which was just before everything went to hell!).

Thanks again to f4780y for his great and easy to follow tutorial, as well as willerz2 for your prompt response.
Regards,
Mike
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