Solution to iPhone Update 3.1 Causing Your Phone to Brick
UPDATE: I highly suggest NOT updating your iPhone to the newest 3.1 OS. After using the phone a couple of days I have noticed that my battery drains A LOT quicker. And by a lot I mean it is under 20% at 4pm after not using it AT ALL and having fully charged it the night before. If you have already updated, you can always revert back to the 3.0.1 OS (there are plenty of websites that show you how).
Well, either technology LOVES to break on me, or Apple is slacking because I am just having a slew of problems with them. First my Macbook Pro starts acting up (read my previous posts), and now my iPhone 3G just bricked on me. For those that don’t know, when an iPhone “bricks”, it basically just dies and is only useful as a brick or paper weight since it won’t turn on or do anything.

The brick happened when trying to update to the newest iPhone OS 3.1. After downloading the update via iTunes and backing up my phone, I kept getting an error message and my phone would stay in restore mode (as pictured above). After searching through forums, I got many crazy “solutions” that required a lot of deleting of files and stuff so I kept looking. After some time, I came upon the right solution for me. It did not require anything complicated or the removal of a bunch of files.
You essentially want to put your iPhone into DFU mode (DFU = Device Firmware Update). This puts the iPhone in restore mode before loading the OS. To do this just follow these steps:
- Open iTunes and connect your iPhone to the computer
- Press and hold the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons on the iPhone for exactly 10 seconds
- Release the Sleep/Wake button while still holding the Home button down
- iTunes should pop up a window similar to the one shown below

Now you can restore and update your iPhone. After the process is done, you will be given the chance to restore the latest backup (so don’t freak out when you see that your phone has gone back to the factory settings and has none of your email accounts or contacts).
Hopefully this will help someone. I am really disappointed in Apple. Seems like they are slipping up.






