My faith in the Church of Steve is being tested…
This morning, my iPhone 3GS complained about a lack of memory while installing an application update, became quite sluggish and eventually just hung. The standard Power Off button trick did not work, so I tried the Hard Reset (keep Home+Power pressed for 10 seconds). Result: the Apple logo was displayed. That’s all. No wait-cursor, no progress bar, nothing.
A couple of Hard Resets later, I was still looking at the Apple logo. So I started looking online for help in fixing my bricked iPhone.
The standard Master Reset trick (disconnect iPhone, Home+Power to switch off, connect via USB to iTunes with Home button pressed) did not seem to work: again, the Apple logo was my only reward. I followed the Youtube video instructions, but the iPhone wasn’t recognized by iTunes. This got me a bit worried ;-)
According to the videos, you can let go of the Home button as soon as iTunes recognizes your iPhone in Recovery Mode. That did not happen for the first few attempts (holding the Home button for as long as a minute). Only after patiently keeping the Home-button pressed for what seemed to be several minutes the iPhone responded by showing the “USB-plug connected to iTunes” screen.
So now I need to wait while Restore and Sync are in progress… Oh Steve, why hast thou forsaken me?