Just ran into something similar today. One of the users I support unplugged her iPhone during the 3.1 update and it rendered her phone useless. Recovery mode didn't work, but I did have some luck with Google (while waiting for the Apple support tech to finish writing up my case over the phone). The trick is to try putting the phone in DFU mode, which is different from recovery mode because it doesn't load the iPhone OS. It took care of the iPhone I was seeing the 1611 error on. If DFU mode does not work, then it is most likely that you have a real hardware issue and the only way to fix it is to have Apple repair the phone. It won't hurt to try the DFU mode trick though since it won't make anything worse. Here's how you do it:
To enter DFU mode:
1. Connect your iPhone to your computer
2 . Turn iPhone off. You may have to hold the power and home buttons down together to force the phone off
3. Once the phone is off, hold the power and home buttons together for 10 seconds exactly
4. After 10 seconds, release the power button but keep holding home until the computer recognizes that a USB device was plugged in
5. iTunes should detect your iPhone correctly, and also allow you to restore to the factory default settings. The iPhone screen should also be black when it's recognized. If it shows the iTunes logo with the cord, then you're in recovery mode and should start over at step #2.
Give this a try and let us know if it worked
Link to my post about this:
http://techierambles.blogspot.com/2009/09/restore-iphone-with-error-13-or-1611-i n.html
