This beginning of August 2011 will go down in history as the time when my iPhone 3GS has gone dead on me and refused to restore. I've been trying to resolve it for the past hour but have given up for the day. I'll be back tomorrow, with good news. I hope.
...
I'm back with a newly restored iPhone 3GS. Here's what happened:
I was trying to upgrade to iOS 4.3.5 when the iPhone just went dead and iTunes ended up suggesting to restore. Why exactly it went off like that I don't know and it still remains a mystery to me. At the time -like most of the time when troubles come your way, it matters little why and how it had happened, all that is important is how to resolve the problem, to get my iPhone up and running again. So I went on with the restoration process in iTunes.
It appeared that all was going well as it should when suddenly during the restoration, the process halted. I tried to restore again but having the same result: it stopped during the process. I searched for clues online and tried them all but still with no success. Wearied, I settled for a lost battle and hoped to get back with better luck.
One of the suggestions Apple gives in resolving update and restore problems is to make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes on your computer. I did that already the first time, what's different now is I tried the same process on a different computer, my laptop. The result: a success.
I suspect it has something to do with the authenticity of the operating system of the computer used. My laptop has an original Windows 7 Professional, whereas I'm not quite sure of the other computer's Windows XP. That's just a hunch, but if that's the case, it really pays to have an original. ;)