IOS 5.1.1 update wrecked my phone, can anybody please help?

Question

Hi there,
I plugged in my iPhone 4S into iTunes, and it tells me that there is an update (iOS 5.1.1)
I click update, it downloads the file and away it goes. I left the computer as this happened, it automatically went to install and when I came back there was an error message. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it said, but what has happened is that the USB cable and iTunes symbol shows on my screen whenever I turn it on (telling me to plug it into my PC). However, iTunes doesn't recognise my phone. Neither does my computer, although it plays the USB sound when I insert/eject my iPhone.
I called apple support and they were of no use, I've read several articles that involved uninstalling all apple programs and starting a fresh all to still be without a phone.
I am at my wits end and most definitely need my phone, so I hope that somebody can please help me resolve this issue as soon as possible!

Answer 1

I know that Apple doesn't read these, that was just a way of trying to say that I see on this and other forums that lots of people are having trouble.  Yes, I tried the restore and also the turning off firewall/anti-virus.  Didn't work.
I finally fixed the problem and learned a lot in the process, especially in talking to some of the guys at the Apple store near where I live.  So here are my recommendations to anyone with this problem:
(All this assumes you have a real iPhone/iPad and not a jailbroken one.  If you don't have a legit one, forget about fixing it.  Every software update is designed to cause problems for jailbroken phones).
First, if you haven't downloaded 5.1.1 yet, and want to avoid the problems, don't do it through iTunes on a Windows machine.  Apple pretty much knows that there are a large number of problems that can occur and they try to help you trouble shoot a lot of them.  But once your install through iTunes on a Windows machine is corrupted, you might have a lot of trouble getting things to work again.  You should download 5.1.1 because of the security upgrades.  If you can download it direclty on your iPhone/iPad that should work without a problem.  If you can connect to WiFi you should, especially if you don't have an unlimited data plan.  If you are on a metered data plan you should never download software updates through your phone connection, only though WiFI or on your iTunes. 
By all means try the hard reset approach described above.  I did multiple times and it didn't work, but if it can work for you, do it. 
Here is another way to do it.  If you have another computer available, download iTunes on that computer and connect the device to that computer.  Do a hard reset.  The other computer's iTunes will recognize the device as just an iphone/iPad.  Then wipe the iphone clean and do an install of the updated OS.  (This assumes that you have backed up your iPhone recently to your computer or iCloud. If you haven't or don't, you will lose a lot of your data, photos, etc.)   Wiping the device and installing the new OS will delete everything on your phone.  After this, then connect it back to your first computer, and iTunes should recognize it.  Then restore from your backup. 
Of course, if you don't want to hassle with any of this just make an appointment at the nearest Apple store and they will fix it for free. They can wipe your phone and then you just restore from a backup. 
What the original poster described is what happens when his phone enters "recovery mode."  This often becomes very hard to recover from on the same computer which caused the faulty install. 
Also, if you do try to uninstall and reinstall itunes, make sure you do it exactly in the order described in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923  If you don't it won't work. 
Good luck