I was going to sell it and the buyer didn’t want it jailbroken so I restored it but something went wrong. iTunes doesn’t recognize the phone when I plug it in anymore and multiple attempts to flash the phone failed to solve this. Any idea what the next step is? Is there anything I can do aside from taking it in for warranty? I’m afraid they will know it was jailbroken since the restore wasn’t successful. Does this mean the warranty will be void and I will have to pay for repairs? 
Same thing happened to me with my iPad about a week ago when I accidentally knocked out the USB cable during a re-jailbreak to untethered. It was stuck in DFU. The way I got out of it was first to delete all the ipsw file for that device from Library / iTunes. This forces iTunes to download another one from Apple and to wipe and reflash the iDevice back to stock. Then I told iTunes to wipe the device.
At the end of the reflash, you can then apply any backups if you want and you’re back to where you were sans apps (which you can either sync back from iTunes or get from the App Store directly on the device again without having to pay for the apps your already downloaded).
Thanks, mabagal. I will give that a try this evening. 
Maybe I missed some files but it didn’t work for me. I uninstalled iTunes, re-installed and it still will not recognize the 3Gs. It recognizes the iPhone 4 fine. I think it’s definitely bricked. 
Don’t give up yet. If iTunes is not recognizing it, you may just have to manually put it in recovery mode. You know that dance you have to do with the home and power on the older jailbreaks? Yah.
With device plugged in, as “on” as it will go, and iTunes running:
Home + Power
Count to 10
Without letting go of Home, let go of Power
Keep holding Home until iTunes says it sees your device in Recovery Mode
Let go of Home
If you got there, you are home free.
I messed up my first gen iPhone with jail breaking, and it was stuck too. The folks at Apple either didn’t know or didn’t care because they took a glance and said ok, here’s a new one… or maybe it was a refurbished one, but I didn’t care. I had a working iPhone again.
[quote=“kaikai34”]I messed up my first gen iPhone with jail breaking, and it was stuck too. The folks at Apple either didn’t know or didn’t care because they took a glance and said ok, here’s a new one… or maybe it was a refurbished one, but I didn’t care. I had a working iPhone again.[/quote]That’s pretty sweet. I doubt they’ll give me a new one because I had the phone for a year. Also, my warranty isn’t through Apple, it’s through Chunghwa Telecom and I believe they source out repairs to a company called SYNNEX. This company may send the device back to Apple but I’m not sure. I know they repair many handsets on the spot when they have the parts in stock.
I am familiar with the jailbreak dance and I tried it many times before and after re-installing iTunes. No luck. I’ll have to take it in to have a tech look at it, I guess. It’s my fault. I should have restored it and left it at that. Instead I jailbroke it and restored it a second time once the buyer mentioned that he didn’t want the jailbreak. :no-no:
The following will work for you to recover lost data of iPhone stuck in recovery mode.
Solution 1 : Turn off your device , then turn back on and everything should be fine.
Solution 2 : Plug your device into a PC or a MAC then iTunes should detect your device is in recovery mode and release you from recovery mode.
ITUNES will automatically pick it up and a pop up box will probally say that your IPHONE is in recovery mode would you like to restore?
- Click the restore tab.
Note - If ITUNES if out of date, this will not work.
Note - Do not do this over WIFI
Note - Do not interrupt the restore
Note - If you did not make a previous back up, your iPhone will restore back to the factory settings.
Solution 3 : RESTORE, your iPod
Solution 4: Press and hold the power button for 5 secs , press and hold the home button and release the power button. Now press the power button and the home button for 10 secs.
Hope iPhone Data Recovery helps!
[quote=“bruncewat”]The following will work for you to recover lost data of iPhone stuck in recovery mode.
Solution 1 : Turn off your device , then turn back on and everything should be fine.
Solution 2 : Plug your device into a PC or a MAC then iTunes should detect your device is in recovery mode and release you from recovery mode.
ITUNES will automatically pick it up and a pop up box will probally say that your IPHONE is in recovery mode would you like to restore?
- Click the restore tab.
Note - If ITUNES if out of date, this will not work.
Note - Do not do this over WIFI
Note - Do not interrupt the restore
Note - If you did not make a previous back up, your iPhone will restore back to the factory settings.
Solution 3 : RESTORE, your iPod
Solution 4: Press and hold the power button for 5 secs , press and hold the home button and release the power button. Now press the power button and the home button for 10 secs.
Hope iPhone Data Recovery helps![/quote]
Has anybody ever tried this? Does it work?
The good news is that you have a nice paperweight…
The bad news is that if iTunes doesn’t recognize your device, you’re probably screwed.
Try this:
If it doesn’t work, you might as well try with a defibrillator.
First is is to put your iPhone in DFU mode.
Step 1. Turn off iPhone
Step 2. Hold down the power and home button.
Step 3. When you see the Apple logo, release the power button but continue holding the home button down.
Step 4. Open iTunes and wait for it to tell you that it’s in restore mode.
Second is to fix with a iPhone Data Recovery tool.
Step 1: Fix the Problem of iPhone Stuck in Recovery Mode
Step 2: Recover Data from your iPhone Directly
Step 3: Recover Lost Data from iTunes Backup
Upgraded to the latest iTunes and make sure USB driver is installed. Then you can use itunes to restore the phone to none-jailbreak. However, if this still doesn’t work, then you should look for iPhone data recovery software, which can pull out the recovery mode and if you lost any data, you can use the app to recover deleted files with the program. However, this is the last choice. iTunes or iCloud is the first choice regarding to new
Yikes, I hope the OP has since upgraded to at least a 5 by now.
To fix iPhone stuck in recovery mode , you can install this tool to your computer and use it to restart your phone, https://www.mobiledic.com/ios-topics/fix-iphone-stuck-in-recovery-mode.html
I was going to ask what was wrong with OP only having a 3GS, but then saw this thread was 6 years old.
Damn. I guess I have to save my jokes for my Dad who still rocks his Nokia flip-phone from a decade ago.