Clearing Personal Data

Technique

My daughter has water damaged her iPhone 4. Several repair shops have said that it's not worth fixing, so it's been gathering dust for a few weeks now.

I've noticed that there's a market for broken iPhones on eBay. I was thinking of selling it for her to help pay for her next phone. However, I'm worried about the new owner getting access to her personal information. I can't wipe it as iTunes doesn't recognise it. There is no financial data, only Facebook, photos, texts etc., but I'd rather not sell it if there was a chance that it could be accessed by the buyer.

Is there any other way of wiping the phone?

Or is there no way of accessing info from a water damaged phone?

flyguy

Does the phone power on at all? In that case you can just go to settings->general->reset->erase all content and settings.
If not then afaik there's nothing you can do. You could try a remote wipe through find my iphone, but that will only work if the phone is powered on and connected to internet.
If the phone has a passcode set you don't have to worry about it as there is no way to access the phone without the passcode. A new owner would have to wipe the phone before they could use it.
Finally apple generally replace water damaged iPhones for a fee, €161.30 in case of an iPhone 4.
http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Ireland&product=iphone

Technique

Thanks for your reply, very helpful.

There was a passcode on the phone so it should be ok.