iPhone restore error 1604

Question

iPhone restore error 1604

I'm currently traveling in China with my iPhone. On my first day here, I plugged my iPhone into my laptop to charge using the USB cable and the screen went static-y. It then acted strange (froze, would not recognize wireless networks, etc.), drained battery quickly, and would not recharge. It finally failed and I got the yellow triangle to notify me that I need to restore.

Problem is that I’ve tried to restore about 30 times and each time it fails while "preparing the iPhone for restore", typically with error 1604. I don’t see anything on the Apple web site about this error, but I’ve tried every troubleshooting step I could to get the restore to work: uninstall/reinstall iTunes and the other Apple components, stopping and restarting the Apple Mobile Service, rebooting, trying different USB ports, etc. Nothing works. And the battery doesn't charge either.

One thing of note: I'm using an iPod cable... would that make a difference? The salesperson at the Apple store said they are interchangeable, so I brought one cable for both the iPhone and the iPod.

Please help! I’ll be in China another week and a half and am phoneless. What is error 1604 during iPhone restore and how do I fix it?

Dell XPS 710, Windows XP Pro

Posted on Sep 26, 2007 8:34 AM

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Answer 1

StarDeb55

Level 6

19,695 points

Sep 26, 2007 5:56 PM in response to TonyInSeattle

You might have better luck finding help in the iPhone forum below.

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1139

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Answer 2

Sep 28, 2007 5:36 AM in response to StarDeb55

i found only one way to solve this problem.

find the actual iphone update file. on a PC it goes to :

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates

and double click the most recent iphone update to execute it.
this finally worked for me when nothing else would.

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Answer 3

Sep 28, 2007 8:42 AM in response to FREDDY CANNON

Freddy,

Absolutely brilliant, I was tearing my hair out with this 1604 error after yesterday's software update, and this fixed me first time, flawless. You should get an award for figuring this out.

Thanks once again,

Andrew

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Answer 4

Sep 29, 2007 2:27 AM in response to realmarshall

Thanks, Freddy and others for your replies. I wish I could try double-clicking the update file directly. However, my phone no longer turns on. I've got a black screen. I've tried charging it in outlets and on my laptop, holding down the top button and the home button, just the top button, etc. but nothing seems to turn it on. I've about given up on it and will have to take it to the Apple store when I return home. I'm really frustrated. If you have any other ideas, let me know...

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Answer 5

dan3476

Level 1

0 points

Sep 29, 2007 10:55 AM in response to TonyInSeattle

This worked like a charm! On a side note, make sure Itunes is closed when you locate and run the firmware file manually. It will launch Itunes and prompt for the restore.

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Answer 6

mishelli

Level 1

0 points

Sep 29, 2007 7:49 PM in response to FREDDY CANNON

unfortunately...those folders don't exist on my computer

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Answer 7

Sep 30, 2007 7:40 AM in response to mishelli

Try this: When you get to Administrator, instead of clicking that, click the folder that corresponds to your login, which is usually something like your name. Then navigate down the folder list from there. On my computer, the files were not located in the Administrator folder either.

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Answer 8

Oct 1, 2007 10:06 PM in response to TonyInSeattle

This worked well. If you have problems finding the location of the file go to C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates. Also, make sure that show hidden files is checked under folder options in file explorer. That will point to the right directory on your user profile.

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Answer 9

rmatte

Level 1

0 points

Jul 12, 2008 1:21 PM in response to TonyInSeattle

I fixed it! All I had to do to get iTunes to finish the reformat without getting that pain in the *** error 1604 was:
1.) turn off the iphone and pull the chord from the computer

2.) uninstall itunes and ALL apple products that installed with itunes 7-4

3.) re-install itunes and ALL apple products that installed with itunes 7-4

4.) Pull the SIM card out of the top of the iphone
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLR,GGLR:2006-0 3,GGLR:en&q=iphone+SIM&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

5.) reboot the iphone and get the dammed yellow triangle of death

6.) Turn on iTunes if it did not come on already to get itunes to see the iphone

7.) reformat the phone--(it should work by now)

8.) reinsert the SIM card in the iphone

9.) reactivate the phone

10.) Restore your data from the last back up

11.) relax .......................finally !

Message was edited by: Moderator

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Answer 10

Oct 5, 2007 8:10 AM in response to TonyInSeattle

I'm the original poster of this message, but I couldn't get this to work. I have returned home and the Apple Store replaced my phone with a new one. Thx to all who helped and I hope these solutions helped others.

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Answer 11

okaroleo

Level 1

0 points

Oct 20, 2007 8:11 PM in response to TonyInSeattle

ATTENTION!!!

I tried upgrading on XP Pro and i was getting this error constantly for an hour. Browsed web and tried all suggestions. Finally i used Windows.. (shiver) Vista and restore/upgrade worked the first time, not a single error. If all fails, try upgrading using Vista!

fyi, first i got error 1602 then constant 1604 with "Connect to iTunes" on the phone.

Message was edited by: okaroleo

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Answer 12

Nov 14, 2007 3:15 PM in response to okaroleo

So tried most of the suggestions on this list, but the only thing that worked for me was to create a new user account on my system (running XP pro). Once I did this and used iTunes under that new account everything worked fine.

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