Unlock iPhone with busted power button?

August 9, 2009 4:27 AM

Is there any way to jailbreak / unlock a 2G iPhone that has a busted power button?

Phone was working fine with 2.something firmware, jailbroken, unlocked, happy days. Today I was greeted with Steve Jobs saying something annoying in Russian, indicating the phone was in recovery mode.

Restored in iTunes figuring I'd just do whatever the latest jailbreak / unlock thing is, only to find that the frigging power button doesn't work so I can't get the phone into DFU mode to unlock it.

I remember an older version of WinPwn (?) would try to put the phone into DFU mode automagically, only prompting you to do the 'hold power + home' thing if it failed. Does anything like this exist for what I assume is now a 3.0 phone?

posted by obiwanwasabi to technology (4 answers total)

try using iBrickr, it was designed for the 1.x days but worth a shot.
http://www.modmyi.com/forums/general/16821-how-exit-dfu-recovery-mode.html

If your on a mac download indepenence:
http://code.google.com/p/independence/
posted by glenno86 at 5:20 AM on August 9, 2009

No go. Independence would've been perfect with its 'DFU mode' button, but it won't talk to the iPhone. Ditto with iBrickr.

I ran purplera1n RC2 after reading it'd throw a phone into DFU mode - all it did was throw it into recovery. I've tried restoring custom firmwares prepped in PwnageTool 3.0, but no go - ditto with older firmwares like 2.2. It'll only restore with original 3.0. Curiously, the phone is unlocked - I get a full Vodafone signal, and can dial whatever I like on the 'emergency' screen. Just no interface, no iTunes.

At the moment it's sitting in recovery mode again.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:40 AM on August 9, 2009

I would probably just have iResQ fix the power button if you're not comfortable trying to do it yourself. I've used them for other iPhone repairs before and their service was excellent and fast (no affiliation with them, just a satisfied customer). A working power button is kind of necessary to do anything useful with the phone anyway.
posted by zachlipton at 1:58 PM on August 9, 2009

Thanks, but it'd be a bit of a drive from Canberra, Australia. Can't say we've ever really used the power button before, otherwise we'd have noticed it was busted earlier. Phone goes to sleep after a minute automatically, home button wakes it up. Never actually needed to turn it on or off.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:33 PM on August 9, 2009