Trouble restoring iPhones

[Ravynmagi]

I constantly have this problem. I have an old iPhone brought to me with a PIN lock (from an employee no longer with the company) and I put the phone into recovery mode and reinstall the software.

Problem is if I need to download the software, it often says it'll take 2 or 3 hours to download from Apple, however the phone only stays in Recovery mode for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes the phone reboots and iTunes gives an error and the download stops.

If I put the phone back into recovery mode and start over, it appears the download starts over from the beginning (doesn't appear to resume the download, but can't be certain).

I often have to repeat this for days, until I finally seem to catch Apple's geriatric servers on a good down and the download happens within that 15 minute window.

I've called Apple support and they really seemed completely clueless about the process, he didn't even seem to understand why my iPhones rebooted out of recovery mode after 15 minutes. So annoying when I know more about the product than the tech support, and I'm not all that knowledgeable about this stuff myself.

So he recommended I just bring the iPhones into an Apple Store. Which isn't a practical solution with the number of iPhones I manage.

Seems like there should be a simple solution to this problem. But I don't know what it is.

 

[TheStu]

I constantly have this problem. I have an old iPhone brought to me with a PIN lock (from an employee no longer with the company) and I put the phone into recovery mode and reinstall the software.

Problem is if I need to download the software, it often says it'll take 2 or 3 hours to download from Apple, however the phone only stays in Recovery mode for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes the phone reboots and iTunes gives an error and the download stops.

If I put the phone back into recovery mode and start over, it appears the download starts over from the beginning (doesn't appear to resume the download, but can't be certain).

I often have to repeat this for days, until I finally seem to catch Apple's geriatric servers on a good down and the download happens within that 15 minute window.

I've called Apple support and they really seemed completely clueless about the process, he didn't even seem to understand why my iPhones rebooted out of recovery mode after 15 minutes. So annoying when I know more about the product than the tech support, and I'm not all that knowledgeable about this stuff myself.

So he recommended I just bring the iPhones into an Apple Store. Which isn't a practical solution with the number of iPhones I manage.

Seems like there should be a simple solution to this problem. But I don't know what it is.

I think there's a way to get the .IPSW (update) file separately, and then you can just restore each one with the one file, but I think the best way to do that is with a device hooked up that isn't PIN locked.

I can't remember where Apple stores it in Windows when it downloads.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Yeah. Download the IPSW from iClarified or something. Put it in the correct directory and iTunes should bypass having to download it.

 

[TheStu]

Alternatively, if you were to restore a phone that isn't PIN locked, then create a backup of that newly wiped device, you could just restore PIN locked phones from that backup.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Oh JFC... I just saw iOS 7.1.1 was released today. Figures why I'm having so many problems.

Seems like I always pick the worst possible day to start restoring old phones. Haha.

 

[TheStu]

Oh JFC... I just saw iOS 7.1.1 was released today. Figures why I'm having so many problems.

Seems like I always pick the worst possible day to start restoring old phones. Haha.

I believe you mean JHC...