iPhone 3G without carrier

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Kratos8051

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Good day friendly people.

I've alwyas been a follower of the mybroadband community, even though I've never actually posted something. However, I now have a problem with my iPhone and I'm not sure what the cause might be, so I've decided to make my first post.

Last night I decided to install Android (iphodroid) on my iPhone. But before attempting something that seems risky, I've decided to backup my NAND using a program eveloped by the same guy, just incase something goes wrong. However, at the end of the process, my phone crashed during startup (Apple logo displayed) and the NAND backup was unsuccessful. I left it there for some time, but after a while I decided to restart my phone, but it got stuck in the recovery loop(i.e. the Apple logo shows, and then phone turns off).

After reading the iphodroid forums for a while, I saw that the NAND-backup is a read-only process and that the NAND can't be corrupted using the program. There was also a couple of people on the forum who had the same problem, which was solved after restore. So, I've decided to try that.

I downloaded custom firmware for my 3.1.2 Vodacom 3G iPhone (Jailbroken) and restored the firmware using iTunes 10 (tried both recovery mode and DFU mode on the phone) and after restoring, I got stuck in the "emergency calls only" mode (with an option to enter my sim-pin in a strange language). After reading on the internet, I got out of the mode using Blackra1n, and the language changed to English. However, I'm now unable to get a carrier.

What is the cause of this? I'm assuming that the downloaded custom firmware has something to do with it. Could it be that I accedentally downloaded custom firmware locked to AT&T? Or is it possible for the custom firmware to update the baseband (even though I assume that this wouldn't be a problem, since the iPhone is not locked to a carrier in SA)? Maybe something else? Any help or advice will be appreciated.

PS. Sorry for the long post. I tried to make it as complete as possible.
 
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You should restore to a 3.1.3 non-jailbroken, you don't need a carrier-unlock right? Use Tinyumbrella if needed.
 
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I don't need a carrier unlock. How do I restore back to a non-JB firmware? Do I use the same method as I did, only with a different downloaded firmware?
 
Well if you don't need a carrier unlock, yeah exactly. Using Shift-restore in iTunes in Windows. You can restore official 3.1.3, or 4.1 or 4.2!
 
Thank you very much for the information. Now I just need a place to download the official 3.1.2 (don't want to go to 4.2, since I've heard that it reduces performance on 3G iPhones).
 
Wow! Thanks for all your help. I saw this site earlier today, but since I've downloaded 2 versions of firmware (both seemed to be custom), I was skeptical to download just any file. Will download the file tonight and try it. Will give feedback tomorrow.
 
Well, the good news is that my iPhone is working again, but not from restoring to original firmware. After restoring, I still had no carrier, so I decided to unlock the phone using Blackra1n, which did the trick. If I'm not mistaking, the locking/unlocking of the carrier happens at the baseband version. Could it be that the last firmware I restored to updated my baseband? According to my knowledge, the baseband is not restored when I restore my phone, which is why it still didn't work. Is this possible?
 
Hmm, well then maybe your iPhone is a US model, which has locked baseband. Anyway, well done!
 
Well. not supposed to be a US model, got it from Vodashop on a Vodacom contract, but I'm glad it worked. Another thing, if you do not mind, what is supposed to be restored when I restore my phone from a backup, because I have all my contacts, messages, photos etc, but most of my settings are missing. I tried to SSH to my phone yesterday, and was unable to. Cydia and most of my Jailbreak apps (such as winterboard) were not restored. I had a keycode to unlock my keypad, but this is also back to default. Were these supposed to be restored? I don't mind installing all this again, but was just wondering.
 
No your jailbreak apps will not be restored from backup, you have to back them up separately, with a jailbreak backup app!
 
i think u should download fuzzyband from cydia .... theoretically it should downgrade ur baseband
 
or alternatively what you can do is just restore ur iphone with ios 3.1.2 with snowbreeze and dont click the option of "activate the iphone" because thats what causes all of the crap and then restore with ios4.1 (and dont forget to save your shsh blobs as ios4.2 is just around the corner) you can find the download link @ http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/iphone-downloads/ and restore it normally through itunes .... dont use redsnow or snowbreeze ...... do it normally , thereafter u can jailbreak with limera1n
 
Well his iPhone is working, all he has to do is jailbreak and get all the old jailbreak apps he used to have off Cydia again.
 
Riazbapoo said:
i think u should download fuzzyband from cydia .... theoretically it should downgrade ur baseband
Click to expand...

If you do want to use fuzzyband just make sure your baseband bootloader is 05.08 and below, then only will fuzzyband work ;)
 
Thanks for all the inputs, guys. I might just restore my phone using snowbreeze, just to see if it makes a difference. I'm really curious why this has happened. Unfortuanately, I can't use fuzzyband I'm on 05.11.07. But if it is possible to downgrade, to which version should I downgrade? Are there different options?

I understand that by restoring, will not restore my JB-apps, but how about phone settings?

Is it worth it to update to iOS4.1? I have a 3G phone. Wount this reduce the phone's performance?
 
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I don't get why your phone needs to be unlocked, the only reason can be it's from the USA or some locked country.

Apparently 4.1 is slightly slower than 3.1.3 but some would say that's worth it given the new features.
 
Same here. Makes no sense. Is there any way to check the origin of the iphone (i.e from whihch country it came)? Maybe I'll give iOS4.1 a shot. I already saved my SHSH (just in case). I can always restore back to 3.1.3/3.1.3 if I don't like 4.1.
 
Sorry guys to bump this thread, but I have a question regarding iOS 4.2.1. I want to update using redsnow, but I saw on the web that: "Again Only proceed with redsn0w if you are on Official Carrier SIM and does not require to unlock your iPhone." Due to my situation (as discussed in this tread) and due to the fact that it seems like I need a carrier unlock, I'm assuming it isn't safe to use redsnow to update. Should I rather use the tinyumbrella method to update without updating my carrier?

Edit: I see some of the tutorials say I should update using iTunes first. What will happen if I do that? Since my iPhone was unlocked when I got it on my Vodacom contract, I would assume that updating using iTunes will install official iOS 4.2.1 with an unlocked carrier, but I don't want to update my phone and get stuck without a carrier. I also saw that the tinyumbrella-method it not working anymore for updating to 3.2.1.
 
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