Capstocup,

T33jay's instructions are on the right track.

Here's a video with step by step how to get your phone firmware restored: http://www.boomrevolution.com/index....ideo_id=119560

I'm not sure why your outlook sync is coming up, but I rock a Mac and haven't seen what happens to the iphone on a PC. Perhaps Activesync tries to get in on the action.

Just so you know, getting on Wifi has nothing to do with jailbreaks or unlocking. If you can get the phone activated, you have wi-fi ability. You have wi-fi even with no sim card installed. The hardware for cell and wifi is completely seperate. I mention it only because the wifi working is not diagnostically relevant to having a working "phone."

All the best.

-TM

TM/T33jay:

Thanks big time to you and Anonymous from the youtube video. What I was not doing was holding the power button and the menu button similataneously for long enough. i.e. I was holding them till the apple logo appeared and releasing and getting into the BSD root: md0, major 2, minor 0 loop. Once I held longer I got to the sync to itunes screen and everything reset. iphone working fine now with a Mobistar (Belgium) SIM card.

Thanks again. Who/where should I send donation? On the Ziphone.org web site?

Take care,
capstocup

Tmob337, thanks for this great post! Clears up a lot of things for us.

Could you or someone here answer some questions regarding the same:

1. Activation: Does this step modify the bootloader, baseband or the firmware? I mean, when I activate the phone, what does it actually do behind the scenes? How is Apple technically 'arresting' us? And how does 'hactivation' differ from 'activation', again, technically speaking.

2. Let's say I currently have firmware 1.1.3 with 1.1.3's baseband (bootloader 4.6). Once we get firmware 1.1.4 from apple, why can't we just delete the line that checks at&t sim card from than and THEN update using the normal process. That way, won't the update process just go ahead and upgrade the 1.1.3 baseband with the new (hacked) 1.1.4 baseband since the new firmware has the password for the same?

3. I know modifying the bootloader is permanent (currently). Apart from that, I'm guessing that it is possible to revert the phone to exactly the same state that it was when picked up from the store, that is, locked to att, with apple authorized firmware etc. Or will there always be something lingering in the phone from back when it was hacked? The only reason I'm asking is if I need to take it back to the store for some hardware issues, it should look like a virgin lest they deny service

Originally Posted by straweggs

Tmob337, thanks for this great post! Clears up a lot of things for us.

Could you or someone here answer some questions regarding the same:

1. Activation: Does this step modify the bootloader, baseband or the firmware? I mean, when I activate the phone, what does it actually do behind the scenes? How is Apple technically 'arresting' us? And how does 'hactivation' differ from 'activation', again, technically speaking.

Activation is purely software - nothing to do with Bootloader, Baseband. As to the rest of your question, you are asking for a level of detail that goes beyond my "hobby" level of interest.

2. Let's say I currently have firmware 1.1.3 with 1.1.3's baseband (bootloader 4.6). Once we get firmware 1.1.4 from apple, why can't we just delete the line that checks at&t sim card from than and THEN update using the normal process. That way, won't the update process just go ahead and upgrade the 1.1.3 baseband with the new (hacked) 1.1.4 baseband since the new firmware has the password for the same?

This is another question for the members of the Dev Team who actually do the hacking. I do not (I do the explaining. I'm the "Explainer." :-) However, if I read your idea correctly, it sounds like you are describing exactly what PwnageTool does. It deletes unwanted lines of code from the update file and then updates as normal.

3. I know modifying the bootloader is permanent (currently). Apart from that, I'm guessing that it is possible to revert the phone to exactly the same state that it was when picked up from the store, that is, locked to att, with apple authorized firmware etc. Or will there always be something lingering in the phone from back when it was hacked? The only reason I'm asking is if I need to take it back to the store for some hardware issues, it should look like a virgin lest they deny service

As far as I know, altering the bootloader is not permanent. Bootneuter can give you any bootloader you like, including fakeblank (which I have never used and don't entirely understand). I have not had much luck finding a pwnage virginizer, which makes me suspect that one does not exist.

That could mean there is no going back.

It could also mean that a DFU restore of the phone to the latest firmware will always "virginize" the phone.

-TM

OMG are we in trouble. I am glad to have found the Hacintosh forum with the help of Google. The trouble is, that all that I read here is complete Double Dutch.
Our problem:
Bought a brand new fully unlocked Iphone (8GB 1.1.4) couple of months back on ebay.
It has worked to perfection on our Finnish SIM card. Including WiFi, Edge, everything. Until my daughter RESET it on her Mac by mistake. (Despite having been severely forewarned.)
Now we have crocodile tears and a poor mother trying to make out how on earth to decode the bugger.
PLEASE help, is there a Decode for Dummies section somewhere. Would be VERRRY grateful for any advice!

Originally Posted by Hilja

OMG are we in trouble. I am glad to have found the Hacintosh forum with the help of Google. The trouble is, that all that I read here is complete Double Dutch.
Our problem:
Bought a brand new fully unlocked Iphone (8GB 1.1.4) couple of months back on ebay.
It has worked to perfection on our Finnish SIM card. Including WiFi, Edge, everything. Until my daughter RESET it on her Mac by mistake. (Despite having been severely forewarned.)
Now we have crocodile tears and a poor mother trying to make out how on earth to decode the bugger.
PLEASE help, is there a Decode for Dummies section somewhere. Would be VERRRY grateful for any advice!

what do you mean by reset, do you mean restore?

Ummm restore or reset, there you go, did not even know that there is a difference. I think Itunes suggested my daughter should update her phone software and it ended up being locked.
Went to the suggested site in MySpace. Found a discussion with someone saying use ZiPHONE.
Another said: Use iDemocracy instead! It’s better for your phone.
And a third suggested iplus or ilberty+, hackthatphone.com or iclarified.com

Hence I am even more confused now. Too many choices!

Originally Posted by Hilja

Ummm restore or reset, there you go, did not even know that there is a difference. I think Itunes suggested my daughter should update her phone software and it ended up being locked.
Went to the suggested site in MySpace. Found a discussion with someone saying use ZiPHONE.
Another said: Use iDemocracy instead! It’s better for your phone.
And a third suggested iplus or ilberty+, hackthatphone.com or iclarified.com

Hence I am even more confused now. Too many choices!

Hilja,

Glad to see you found your way to Hackintosh! There is a LOT of good info here, but of course no one here is in it for the cash. That means we're not as responsive or "easy to use" as some would like.

Since you're replying to the "is not" threads I'm going to proceed assuming you know the difference between a baseband, a bootloader, and a firmware. Also the difference between jailbreaking and unlocking.

Here's the deal:

Your daughter, it seems, has upgraded your phone to Firmware 2.0. To undo this, please look at the PwnageTool forums on this site, and download the PwnageTool. DO NOT UPDATE to 2.0.1 (since that has yet to be unlocked, I hear).

The PwnageTool FAQ and Walkthroughs should get you to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Best of luck!

-TM

Hey

All this iPhone stuff can be really confusing, I know this from when I got mine back in september last year.

Let's clarify a few things:

iPhone has 2 processors, one for the Operating System (OS) which is Mobile OS X, and one to control the phone functions (called the Baseband processor). During most software updates, Apple includes a Baseband firmware update. This updates the software on the baseband processor, which often includes some bug fixes and sometimes some tweaks to get better cellular signal/reception. The baseband processor controls all phone functions, as said before, which include Phone, SMS, and I think WiFi (not 100% on the WiFi one, I think the OS controls that but if you remove baseband firmware you also loose WiFi)

Now let's talk about bootloaders. A bootloader is a program that loads the main software when you boot the device (hence the name bootloader.) It checks to make sure you are running proper, apple signed firmware before allowing to boot. The baseband and OS have their own bootloaders.

This means that if you are running a patched kernel or patched baseband firmware, you can not boot the phone as it will detect unsigned code. This is where "Pwnage" comes in. It removes these checks from the bootloaders, allowing you to have total control over the device. This means custom firmwares etc.

There are 3 things that must be done (in this order) to get the phone working on an unofficial carrier:

Jailbreaking
Activating
Unlocking

You will notice that if you upgrade through itunes without "pwining" your firmware (more on pwning at end of post) the iPhone will say "Slide for emergency" instead of "slide to unlock." This is because iPhone wants you to sign up to a contract with AT&T or whoever the phone is made for. But you dont want to do this if you want to unlock. So you must fake this activation. This can be achieved, but the iphone must have an open filesystem to do this. Which is where Jailbreaking comes in. You can not just drag and drop stuff into iPhone like 3rd party apps etc, as you can not "get in." Jailbreaking is a process which enables you to read/write to the system partition to do such things. Once this is done, unlocking can be achieved. This is usually an automated process, so we wont talk about it now.

This all sounds confusing. Luckily, Jailbreaking, Activating and Unlocking is all handled by the same program nowdays. Here are some of the options you have:

1. ZiPhone: NOT RECOMMENDED. There are many flaws with this program. KEEP AWAY. This currently only works on 1.1.4

2. iDemocracy: Based on ZiPhone but contains many additional features. Again, only works on 1.1.4. Better than ZiPhone, but since it is not compatible with 2.0 then there is not much point is using it at this time.

3. PwnageTool (Mac OS X): This is the one to use. It patches the bootloaders to accept unsigned code, meaning you can use custom firmware through iTunes. It's pretty much as easy as restoring your phone. More on this over on blog.iphone-dev.org

4. WinPwn (Windows Vista, XP): The equivalent of PwnageTool except for windows users. Check out WinPwn.com

4. iLiberty+/X: The best solution for 1.0.2-1.1.4 (somehow forgot this... seriously I don't know how I did)

I suggest WinPwn or PwnageTool. They are by far the best.

good luck

Just to add to secretmx fine outline above.

Some other options are:

- for firmware 1.0.2 - 1.1.4, the best program under windows is iLiberty+. This software does JB/ACT/Unlock and many more via payloads.

- Sometimes iLiberty+ does not work with older firmware such as:

+ fw 1.0.2, then you use apptapp, pacay to JB/ACT

+ fw 1.1.1, then you use appsnap (jailbreakme.com) to JB/ACT

+ fw 1.1.1, you can also use CARNAVAL to JB/ACT

Now on the unlocking side, IHMO, the way to unlock baseband now is to use bootneuter to neuter the bootloader and unlock. At this point in time, there is no reason to use anySIM, IPSF and similar to unlock baseband. Bootneuter is the way (yes, we have come a long way from the initial unlock). Like secretmx said, pwnage tool and winpwn is the best tool at this time.