need a little help

[tool88]

OK i got a iPhone 3 from a guy at work who got it from a freind when he got the phone it was unlocked and working.
since then he had tried to do a either a restore or repair through i tunes and now it turns on but it says about inserting a Sim card
i have tried using a at&t Sim and t mobile Sim, it does get rid of the Sim message but it will go to emergency dialing only.
the screen shows a lock at the top center.

i have tried i tunes, redsnow and tiny umbrellas and snowbreeze but nothing detects the iPhone.
i have repeatedly tried to put it it dfu mode but from what i understand is that the screen should be black but the
only thing i can get once in a while is just a usb cable with i tunes to show up on the screen.

things i know about the phone
it was ulnlock
it was fine till he tried to reset it

to be honest i dont know anything about iPhone being a android user and windows man but i would like to get it working if only to play games and use as a mp3 player so please help.

thanks Ben

 

[willerz2]

It was probably unlocked using UltraSn0w, and once he restored it, he wiped the software unlock. Try putting the iPhone into DFU again. Make sure you're putting it into DFU and not recovery. There are many video guides on Youtube and there are instructions in RedSn0w as well. It would be easy to do in the recovery screen since it won't disrupt your process.

On the note of nothing recognizing it, try this, plug in the iPhone, see if you see any devices with a yellow triangle and a black exclamation in your device manager. Or if you see an Apple Mobile Driver or something of the sort in your device manager. Delete it, unplug your iPhone, reboot, and plug it back in to reinstall the driver.

 

[tool88]

thanks for the quick reply, but nothing shows up in the device manager. also Ive been trying to get it into dfu, ive googled many instructions on how to do it but nothing so far has worked, maybe my timmign is off.

 

[willerz2]

Try turning the iPhone off completely while unplugged and plug it back in and see if your iPhone boots up.

 

[tool88]

once again thanks for such quick replys but sadly it does not turn on when pluged in when it it completly off

 

[willerz2]

I'm going to take a hazardous guess that he didn't put the device into DFU mode when restoring and he's probably bricked it. If you know someone who can or if you have a pentalobe screwdriver, try taking it apart and see if it's a hardware issue (which I highly doubt). Otherwise, the phone is quite literally a brick with no repair since you can't exactly swap out the baseband chipset because it is an older chipset that's hard to come by and it's in the grey area of discussion so I'll just leave it at that.

 

[tool88]

well thats not what i wanted to hear but thanks for the reply. we just bought my kid a iphone 4s for christmas maybe she will let me play with it once in a while.

 

[willerz2]

See if your local electronics or hardware store has a pentalobe screw. It shouldn't cost more than a few bucks. If you can open it to see the extent of any possible hardware damage?, you can probably make out a way to fix it without having to replace every little thing. Or you can get an iPhone 4? They are free when you re-activate/start a contract for most carriers. Or if you buy a second hand one, and since you're an Android user at the moment, you have a data plan and all. All you need to do is transfer the SIM over (assuming the iPhone is locked to the same carrier), or you can invest another 20-30$ on an interposer to get it unlocked if your specs meet the requirements

 

[tortelliniguy]

Just to clarify iPhone 3GS' do not use pentalobe screwdrivers. At least they shouldn't have them officially. They just use standard philips head screws. The pentalobe screw was introduced with the iPhone 4 and is now used for the 4S and 5.

 

[tool88]

well it will turn on if i reboot the computer but thats it as far as the phone its really no big deal it was free because he messed it up.

 

[willerz2]

So used to physically dealing with 4s and 4S's

 

[tool88]

before i give up completely im going to try and run osx in a virtual machine, will it make a difference probably not.

 

[willerz2]

It might or it might not. Yes iOS and Mac are native to one another in one respect, and there are cases of where problems are fixed when connected with a Mac, but I'm my entirely sure in this situation