Bricked iPhone? is it recoverable?

[qbazdz]

Hi,

My dad has a very old iPhone 4 (A1332) which recently just packed up and gets stuck on the apple logo (bootloader?).
I can't help him in person as he is travelling but he popped into a few shops and they tried a few things with no luck.
I asked him to get the iTunes on and hook it up to his laptop and on connection iTunes attempted to do auto recovery and failed with restoring it with 'unknown error (9)' message.

I'm more of an Android guy so can't really help him, but suspect the phone is a goner. Any ideas?

 

[ChrisD.]

Has he tried an Apple shop? Given the age of the phone it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s some form of a hardware issue. Is it backed up at all?

 

[qbazdz]

Yep - I directed him there too, but where he is currently there aren't many around.
He is not totally keen on changing the handset, but equally there is not much data on it that he would actually miss.

 

[radderfire]

Somebody somewhere will be able to fix it I expect, but it's finding them. It's the kind of thing some guy in a backstreet market in India would be able to fix. Bound to be some places in the UK too. However, it sounds like upgrade time to me, if he can afford it.

 

[qbazdz]

Totally agree.
I found initial troubleshooting guide on Apple's website for this error so will give this a go in a first instance but I think the phone is on last legs (or dead) even if we recover anything.

 

[radderfire]

I just saw an iPhone repair video on YouTube and thought of this thread. They looked as if they knew what they were doing, but I've never used them. Maybe they could fix your phone:

iDoctor UK

I Fix Things! Smartphone Repairs Tablet Repairs IOS Tips and Tricks Check us out on TikTok!

www.youtube.com

iDoctor UK – iPhone & Android Repair Specialists

www.idoctoruk.com

 

[Feek]

Just from the name, personally I wouldn’t go near them

 

[dazzlaa]

Have to say, the Apple shop is probably the best bet

 

[holdin09]

Hi,

My dad has a very old iPhone 4 (A1332) which recently just packed up and gets stuck on the apple logo (bootloader?).
I can't help him in person as he is travelling but he popped into a few shops and they tried a few things with no luck.
I asked him to get the iTunes on and hook it up to his laptop and on connection iTunes attempted to do auto recovery and failed with restoring it with 'unknown error (9)' message.

I'm more of an Android guy so can't really help him, but suspect the phone is a goner. Any ideas?

Just going off what you have said it most likely is a logic board failure as I have an ipad that is the same only boots on apple logo. You can put it in recovery dfu mode but it fails to reinstall the firmware and that is logic board as I have had it to the apple shop and the guy said it was that.

One thing he could try is using either something like 3utools, imazing or reiboot to try and boot it or restore it. You can turn on verseboot and see where it is getting stuck in the boot order.