iPhone - Hands-On

iPhone

So i get a refurbished iPhone from at&t’s website and it comes fast but it is basically an expensive paperweight.  Here is what the forzen apple screen looks like when i power it on:

 I have tried everything, replacing the USB cable, trying a new install of iTunes, Upgrading my USB drivers, I even tried a different computer and still get this “Unknown Error 23″.  I tried rolling back to firmware 2.0, 2.01, 2.1 and a few others to no avail.  So now I have to send this paperweight iPhone back to att and wait for a new one.  I tried both a hard reset and a soft reset as follows:

iPhone Hard Reset Procedure

1. Press and hold the home button (the big circle with the square inside below the screen) and the sleep wake button (the button on top of the iPhone to the right) simultaneously.
2. Hold both buttons simultaneously for a few seconds, Ignore the “Slide to power off (which I dont even get on my bricked phone at the moment)” and keep holding them down until….
3. The iPhone should now shutdown automatically – (fade to black)
4. Turn the iPhone back on by hitting the sleep/wake button.
5. You should now see the Apple logo, your iPhone is restarting and thus booting up.
6. You have completed a hard reset successfully (in theory).

iPhone Soft Reset Procedure

To perform a soft reset, press and hold the iPhone’s Sleep/Wake button and the Home button for several seconds, or until you see the apple logo on the screen. (This action did NOT reset my iPhone and I was very pissed at this point).

iPhone/Touch restore procedure

Hold down the circular button with the square below the screen WHILE plugging your iPhone or into your computer.  You should get the iTunes icon with an arrow on the screen.   Here is a picture…

Now… iTunes should detect that an iPhone is connected in restore mode.  To install your own firmware file, shift click the restore button in iTunes and browse for the correct IPSW file (sometimes you need to rename from ZIP if you downloaded from web).  Hope this works for you.

As a last resort after failed attempts at firmware rollbacks, I tried the jailbreak/unlock software made by pwned but that was unsuccessful, so now I have to send my refurbished phone back to at&t to get re-refurbished.