Hi all,
I bought a dead iPhone 3GS (16GB) from a fellow, who in turn had bought it on eBay and, he said, tried futilely to fix it himself. Well, I've heard worse stories. It showed signs of having been opened before, possibly many times. Pressing buttons did no good - it remained dead.
I plugged it into my charger. Then, when I hit the Sleep/Wake switch, it showed nothing but a rather dim "Battery" picture on the screen, with nothing but a narrow red band on the left side. It was pretty clearly telling me that the battery was dead. I left it on the charger overnight (this charger works very well with my normal 3GS, charges it up in a few hours). But the dead iPhone still showed that almost-dead battery symbol the next morning, and would do nothing else.
Bit the bullet and ordered a new battery. When I opened the iPhone, I saw one cable that appeared to be not connected. Hmm. Took the phone apart, replaced the battery, put it together, and connected all cables as well as I could.
Now I hit the Sleep/wake switch, the Apple logo appeared (first time!) and it woke up! Showed maybe 50% battery charge, which is a vast improvement. It's on my office charger now, and battery charge has climbed to 61% so far. We're in businesss!
Except now it's asking for a passcode.
Let's just say that the guy I bought it from (in the parking lot of a local burger joint at night for cash, 'nuff said) might be pretty hard to reach, and he probably doesn't know the passcode himself.
Is there anything more I can do to bring this phone into the world? Or have I run into the immovable object now?
Is there some kind of "Master reset" that can get past this Passcode request? Reset to original factory values, or something like that? I don't mind opening the case again if I need to.
Or do I now have a paperweight with a new battery?
I bought a dead iPhone 3GS (16GB) from a fellow, who in turn had bought it on eBay and, he said, tried futilely to fix it himself. Well, I've heard worse stories. It showed signs of having been opened before, possibly many times. Pressing buttons did no good - it remained dead.
I plugged it into my charger. Then, when I hit the Sleep/Wake switch, it showed nothing but a rather dim "Battery" picture on the screen, with nothing but a narrow red band on the left side. It was pretty clearly telling me that the battery was dead. I left it on the charger overnight (this charger works very well with my normal 3GS, charges it up in a few hours). But the dead iPhone still showed that almost-dead battery symbol the next morning, and would do nothing else.
Bit the bullet and ordered a new battery. When I opened the iPhone, I saw one cable that appeared to be not connected. Hmm. Took the phone apart, replaced the battery, put it together, and connected all cables as well as I could.
Now I hit the Sleep/wake switch, the Apple logo appeared (first time!) and it woke up! Showed maybe 50% battery charge, which is a vast improvement. It's on my office charger now, and battery charge has climbed to 61% so far. We're in businesss!
Except now it's asking for a passcode.
Let's just say that the guy I bought it from (in the parking lot of a local burger joint at night for cash, 'nuff said) might be pretty hard to reach, and he probably doesn't know the passcode himself.
Is there anything more I can do to bring this phone into the world? Or have I run into the immovable object now?
Is there some kind of "Master reset" that can get past this Passcode request? Reset to original factory values, or something like that? I don't mind opening the case again if I need to.
Or do I now have a paperweight with a new battery?
)