Unknown Error 28

I bought an iPhone 3G 8GB from Orange this past wednesday, same day i upgraded to version 3.0, the next day, as i was listening to some music, it just froze, and the "iTunes" screen came on.

I tried connecting it and it states that iPhone is in recovery mode and needs to be restored, whenever i click on restore, and as it says "Waiting for iPhone", it gives me the Error 28 message, i tried to:

install latest version of iTunes.
Restart my mac and try again.
Restore iPhone from another PC.
Create a new Admin account and restore from there.

NOTHING WORKED. i went to Orange on thursday, and they said they will check it and get back to me, this is ******** that apple is not acknowledging the problem: i have everything as it is in the book: Locked iPhone to Orange With Contract... FIX THIS.

I have the same problem with my original 2G iPhone. The phone shows the "plug me in to itunes" screen. When I plug it , iTunes says it has detected a phone in restore mode. When I try to restore, it get error 28.

I called Apple Tech Support and their only solution was to take it to repair center or pay $199 for a replacement.

I've tried restoring from 2 different PCs, about 50 times!

When it first happened, I was able to restore, but within about 30 minutes, the iPhone went into and reboot loop and hasn't worked since.

Ugh!

I have the exact same problem. I have tried different itunes versions, different firmwares, different iphone cords, different computers (vista, xp, and a macbook pro) and nothing will restore. Put the phone in DFU mode and attempted to restore about a thousand times over the last week. The phone is only about 6 weeks old and happened about a week after I upgrade the firmware to 3.0 Has anyone been able to restore after an error 28?

seems to me, that this problem is still unsolved an that apple overestimated the power of old iphones. therefore they burn with OS 3.0 and you will receive an error 28.
I have tried several options (5 different pcs (from xp to vista64); 3 different macs (macbook, macbook pro)), all versions of itunes 8, reinstall, restart, dfu-restore, nothing worked!!!!!
best is, to bring all the iphones back to apple and they have to handle the problem. if anyone finds out different solution, please let me know

Try this......

Phone OFF and unplugged.
Load iTunes.
Hold down the HOME button and connect the phone. Do not release the home button until 30sec after the APPLE logo appears.

See if that lets you restore the phone. I had the same problem and was trying to watch what they were doing at the Genius bar. I think that was it.

Hey guys,


After about 6 hours troubleshooting with apple and rogers.. i decided to take matters into my own hands. This is what worked for me. First off this issue is a firmware problem and is temperamental which means it will go away when it feels like it. If you turn your phone off and let it charge over night. Don't touch it till the next morning after its fully charged, Turn it on the next morning and try and restore the phone. You should be able to do it without getting error 28 or sometimes 9. If you do try it again in a different usb port and restart your computer. if successful turn your phone off and on then do a reset network settings after that do a hard reset ( hold home key and power button) after it turns back on restore the phone and update (don't update to verson 3.2) you can backdate your phone to your previous setting. Hopefully this works for you guys.

Hello fellow error 28 receivers,

I went to the genius bar yesterday to check out this problem and I was informed that the problem was due my iphone being submerged in liquids. If you look into the headphone jack of your iphone you might be able to see a pink discoloration (when normally it is completely white) at the bottom inside the hole. This indicates that there was water damage done to the iphone. HOWEVER, in the 2 months that I have had my Iphone I have never let my iphone even close to any form of liquid. I do want to mention that I bought my iphone off of someone else not apple or AT&T. The genius at the genius bar mentioned that sometimes after being submerged in water the phone can work for a couple of months after and then suddenly go haywire. He did say that with 100% confidence that the error (28) is due this liquid damage. I am assuming that the person that I bought my iphone off of must have submerged it in water (which if this is the case, completely my own fault). But I did want to let you all know that perhaps this maybe this error is due to liquid damage. If this is the case, the only way to have a functioning iphone again is to pay for a $199 replacement or buy a new one.

If anyone else has visited the genius bar about this problem and they have concluded a different cause please let it be known.

Hi,

I already posted about having the problem.

I went to Orange to fix the problem, they said they will check and get back to me, i got the phone fixed in a couple of days, but the problem is, they rolled the software back to 2.2.1 after i upgraded to 3.

Am affraid that if i upgraded to 3 again i will get the same error, since some of you here are saying it is a problem of over-working the 3G within the 3 software environment, any idea if this might be the case?

thanks

OK, I managed to solve this problem. I had the exact same symptoms for about a month and now my iPod works like the charm. It will require from u to downgrade ur firmware to 2.2.1, but at least you will get it to work. It works 100%, just follow these instructions...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26BGUkjuAUg

enjot ur iPod/iPhone. See ya.

Once again........

Try this......

Phone OFF and unplugged.
Load iTunes.
Hold down the HOME button and connect the phone. Do not release the home button until 30sec after the APPLE logo appears.

See if that lets you restore the phone. I had the same problem and was trying to watch what they were doing at the Genius bar. I think that was it.

Hey guys, i have exactly the same problem. My phone goes into errors 28 from recovery mode, and error 1600/1601 from DFU mode.
I've seek for how do i handle this problem, for about one week, and it seems it's a hardware problem, with my logic board. I've found that if you disconnect your communication board and connect your iPhone to iTunes and starts it's not a communication board error, it's something wrong with logic board.
Now i am waiting for someone with a new logic board to see if it works.

Best regards,
birkof

At the Genius Bar today, they tried a restore...same Error 28...tried to hold down power and home key...same error...28. He then replaced it with a new/refurbished one since it was still within the year warranty...he hadn't seen this error before...

Everything seems fine with the new one so far...I have a sense this is a hardware problem.

R

It happened to me once, in my case it was USB related, it was regarding my USB External HD being connected while I was working on the phone, I was doing a full wipe to get it exchanged for cracks, anyways, I unplugged all the USB storage stuff, restarted the pc and it was working fine afterwards, so next time unplug any USB storage units (HD, flash drives, thumb drives) while u restore or wipe the iPhone.

At least it worked for me.

Got the 'error 28'. Brought it into the Genius Bar because I couldn't back update it to 2.2.1 (I kinda dont know what Im doing).

Anywho, the 'Genius' didnt know the answer as well. Luckily I was still under warrenty and they were nice of enough to grant me a new one.

However, I have no resolution to this error, but make sure you dont mention water as I have read in this forum.

Friends I do This and Works for ERROR 28 : First is not a Hardware problem

*Moderate annoyance 2:*
*leave your dead iphone buzzing on the desk connected to itunes for like 30 minutes.. (it should switch on and off again at 5-10 min intervals)..make a coffee....*
*after 30 mins... maximise itunes and do a sync... if it can sync..*

From this : http://www.iphonefans.com/troubleshooting-support/2214-need-help-iphone-error-23 -a.html

at the end of foro.