Will the 3GS go out of recovery mode once the battery is completely drained?

Question

Will the 3GS go out of recovery mode once the battery is completely drained?

For totally unknown reasons my iPhone 3GS went into recovery mode (Recovery mode, new BR) three weeks ago. Since then I have really tried everything, every suggestion, every trick, every piece of software. Nothing worked. I keep getting an error message ("The iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error error occured (-1). ) Question: will the 3GS go out of recov mode once the battery is completely drained? If so, is there a specific method to push the very last drop of juice out of the battery of an iPhone in recovery mode?

Posted on Sep 19, 2012 5:41 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Sep 19, 2012 5:49 AM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

No, and if you run it down to auto-shut down and then let it sit long enough to fully drain the battery (which will take awhile as it slowly dissipates that last bit of charge) you will ruin the battery. Lithium batteries run down to a true zero charge state do not recover and will never take a proper charge again.

Was this phone jailbroken, by any chance?

Also, is your iTunes up to date?

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 19, 2012 6:20 AM in response to Michael Black

Hi

Thank for your response.

The phone is an originally unlocked iPhone, it was jailbroken once but then I erased Cedia again and put it back in - what I believed - original regular iOS state. Yes, I do have the lastest version of iTunes.

Reply

Answer 3

Sep 19, 2012 6:24 AM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

Well, usually, as I hinted, that error comes about because of a fubar'd baseband in trying to go from a jailbroken phone to an iOS restored device. You will have to look online for possible answers - the terms of use here forbid anyone offering explicit help.

Reply

Answer 4

Sep 19, 2012 6:35 AM in response to Michael Black

I do understand what you say about the terms of use.

What I do not understand is, that this jailbreak took place some two years ago and ever since I restored the orignal 4.3 iOS I upgrade to both 5.0 and 5.2 without any problems. The afternoon that my 3GS went into recoverery mode I noticed a malfunctioning app. I believe I closed the app - at least I was under that impression - but then I discovered about half an hour later when I wanrted to make a phone call that that was no longer possible. By the way, I am not an engineer. What is the baseband actually? I mean, I read stuff in various posts on the internet about specific versions (numbers) of the iPhone and iPad baseband. But what is it?

Reply

Answer 5

Sep 19, 2012 6:54 AM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

Baseband is just the code that handles all the communication aspects of the iPhone - voice calls, cellular data connections, wifi, bluetooth. Ordinarily, all of these would require their own antennae to connect, but the baseband takes over that function, allowing all the various radios to connect via a single integrated antennae. The baseband and the iOS are two separate things, and hacking the phone replaces both, which is why trying to undo the hack is often problematic (Apple normally does iOS and baseband updates separately).

Have you been able to just power cycle the phone? Or even just a normal reset?

Reply

Answer 6

Sep 19, 2012 7:50 AM in response to Michael Black

I have first of all followed your advise and attached the iPhone to a charger. It is now charging and has already been sufficiently charged, for it to show the regular Recovery mode "USB-Connect to iTunes" screen again (the screen it showed for the past three weeks). So it is still in Recovery Mode. So far power cycling the phone always (just now once more) resulted in the "USB - Connect to iTunes" screen to show up again (and again).

Reply

Answer 7

Sep 19, 2012 7:52 AM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

Sorry, but I am out of ideas then.

Reply

Answer 8

Sep 19, 2012 8:07 AM in response to Michael Black

First of all, thank you very much for your efforts and your time. Really appreciated.

The thing is: how do I get my iPhone out of recovery mode and into DFU mode. Even that appears to be impossible.

Reply

Answer 9

Sep 19, 2012 8:13 AM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

Try just searching for something related to "force iPhone into dfu mode" - that's all I can think of to offer at this point. I've never had to deal with one as stubbornly stuck as yours seems to be.

Reply

Answer 10

Sep 19, 2012 8:19 AM in response to Michael Black

Once again, thank you very much

Reply

Answer 11

cgambleh

Level 1

0 points

Sep 19, 2012 6:19 PM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

did you have any luck? My 3GS has never been jailbroken, and when i tried to update it to ios6 today, it got stuck in recovery mode and gave me the same (-1) error everytime i tried to restore it. Dont know what to do now.

Reply

Answer 12

Sep 19, 2012 11:19 PM in response to cgambleh

No unfortunately not, at least sofar. I thought I had found a solution after googling "foce iPhone into dfu mode"

as suggested in an earlier post, but no, that solution did not work either. But I am not yet giving up hope... not yet, that is till the 9/28 when the iPhone5 becomes available in my country....

Reply

Answer 13

Feb 6, 2013 8:41 AM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

Me also exactly had this problem after an IOS6.0,1 updation on my 3gs.I have done many restore operations and it failed with error code -1.After an umpteenth restore it sucessfully restored.But after that restore,I phone will lose network and wireless and will go to NoSim and No service mode if it used too much.Then I have to give it some rest then after some time it will automatically detect network. So on a desparate occation I entered into DFU mode and tried to restore and now I am again in exactly the same situation as u r.Battary will show red ring and when I restore,ended up with error -1.

Reply

Answer 14

Feb 6, 2013 12:09 PM in response to amalfromaa

Hi

I am very sorry that I cannot be of help. I can only offer you my moral support. I was not able to solve the problem, so in the end (after three week of resultless efforts) my iPhone 3GS got dismantled. The screen ended up on the iPhone 3GS of my oldest son, who had earlier broken the glass of his iPhone 3GS. The rest got reclycled. And I could only think of one true solution: buy myself an iPhone5.

Which - if I am honest - was something I wanted to do for a long time already. The iPhone5 is a fantastic device.

How about giving yourself (or have yourself given) one for Valentine.... ;-)

Reply

Answer 15

Feb 7, 2013 12:33 AM in response to Hugo Van Rhijn

I am also going to trash my 3gs and planning to go back to an android phone,as I am afraid of happening the same thing if I baught a new iphone also.

Reply