Help! Think I've gone and done it...

[woodspring]

Hi All!

Just found this site while researching and so happy about it. Looks like a great resource and place to chat all things Mac.

Have a question that may be a "Duh" answer, but I'm a novice at jailbreaking/unlocking.

A year ago, I bought a iphone 3gs from a friend that had been using it at AT&T. I jailbroke and unlocked it using redsn0w and used it happily for a year while on TMobile until my contract ran out. Now that it's over, I went legit, purchased the iphone 4s and signed up with Verizon.

I decided to give my daughter the old phone to use as an itouch for Christmas this year. Well, then I had to go and do something dumb...
I plugged it in, reformatted and erased all data through itunes (i'm assuming it updated it to ios 5.0.1) And now it seems it cant be unlocked.

Any advice?

I thought i found the newest version of redsn0w online, but I could be wrong. Someone told me to buy a att gophone sim, look up an ?imei? number and activate it prepaid through AT&T just to get it working for her.
Well, can't find one of the numbers online and wouldnt know that right one if I did.

Is this phone toast?

Thanks in Advance!

 

[Applejuiced]

You can activate it with any att sim, even old invactive sim cards.
Or use a friends sim for a minute to activate it and then use it as an ipod.
If you JB in order to hactivate you will be stuck with a tethered JB.

 

[woodspring]

oops! Just saw the thread below- don't think i will be doing to imei thing...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1199418/

Applejuiced- I'm guessing you mean an already activated old ATT sim?

 

[Applejuiced]

oops! Just saw the thread below- don't think i will be doing to imei thing...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1199418/

Applejuiced- I'm guessing you mean an already activated old ATT sim?

Yes, or deactivated AT&T sim, prepaid AT&T sim anything like that will do the trick.

 

[woodspring]

ok applejuiced- i put in the att sim and plugged it into itunes:

here is what is happening:

-"waiting for activation" message on iphone (this may take some time)
-"set up your iphone" screen on itunes -
do i select:
1. set up as new phone
2. restore from the back up of "____ family's iphone" last updated 10/26/11

 

[Applejuiced]

ok applejuiced- i put in the att sim and plugged it into itunes:

here is what is happening:

-"waiting for activation" message on iphone (this may take some time)
-"set up your iphone" screen on itunes -
do i select:
1. set up as new phone
2. restore from the back up of "____ family's iphone" last updated 10/26/11

Its up to you. Do you want to set it up as new or restore from a backup? Either one will do.

 

[woodspring]

I did a restore and it worked great. Hoping it had my previous jailbroken apps on there like Cydia, but it did not. Will take what I can get though...

Happy that it is working for her and she will be happy this Christmas! Thanks for the help. I was thinking it would be so much more complicated than the Sim card...

 

[Crystal-RX]

I did a restore and it worked great. Hoping it had my previous jailbroken apps on there like Cydia, but it did not. Will take what I can get though...

Happy that it is working for her and she will be happy this Christmas! Thanks for the help. I was thinking it would be so much more complicated than the Sim card...

You have 2 options to jailbreak this phone if you want Cydia on it.

1. You can jailbreak it with redsn0w, then install semi tether onto the phone. You will have a semi tether jailbroken phone.
2. Since you have a 3GS, you can downgrade it to 4.1 and then jailbreak it. It will be untethered jailbreak for that firmware.