Anyone done this? Just tried now but one of the little Philips screws attaching the battery inside won’t budge and the ‘cross’ has rounded off somewhat. I got some tools included with the battery but I don’t think they’re the best quality.

Anyone have any ideas as to what I can do? The phone is fine and I can put it all back together but I’d just like to be able to stick this new battery in.

I was gonna say its easy, but you’ve screwed a screw. 😉

With the situation you are in, I would stick some araldite on the screw head, put screwdriver into the screw/araldite, wait for it to set and unscrew. Replace battery and screw and hopefully you can persuade the screwdriver to detach itself.

Or, you could dremel a line in the screw to use a flathead, but I wouldn’t like metal filings flying around an open iphone..

Ah nice idea, thanks for that. Yeah I’m clearly far too cack-handed to start using a Dremel on my iPhone!

maybe try and get hold of a good quality screwdriver – a driver can look like a philips or pozidrive (if fact check which it should be it makes more difference than you’d think) but if they’re not a good fit all the contact is concentrated on one spot only. Often cheap drivers that are chucked in with a fitting kit are a sort of average between a philips and a pozi and don’t do either job properly. Even if its rounded out a bit and good driver will engage on bits of the screwhead that the other driver wasn’t making contact with.

It might be wise to swallow your pride and take it to someone who as the right kit before the screw becomes unsalvageable

I replaced the screen and battery on my iphone 3gs recently. Was a fairly easy task. However, I tried using the tools that came with the screen and they were rubbish. The screwdriver rounded of a bit and couldnt remove them. Went to Maplin and and purchased a precision set and no further problems.

Thanks folks – going to try a better set of screwdrivers, next option araldite, then take it to a phone shop when I make a horrible mess. 🙂

going to try a better set of screwdrivers

if you’re not already familiar make sure you can identify philips and pozidrive screws/drivers by looking at them, otherwise you could get into the same bother with a better wrong drive, if you see what I mean

Looking at the back of my iphone, it is a Philips screwdriver you will need, 0 point.

The screws used on the 4/4s are special pentalobe Torx screws, so a driver for any other type of screw will trash them.
This is the correct driver:
http://www.iphonepartsandrepairs.co.uk/iphone-4-screwdriver-including-2-case-screws

Early iphone 4s were not pentalobes.

Mines not

4s should all be pentalobes , battery kits on fleebay come with both tools. – i have one here waiting to be fitted

I wont be using their kit its garbage ive got a good quality kit of drivers for this kinda stuff

The screws at the bottom to take off the rear plate are pentalobes, the inside ones are defo Philips.