Am a newbie to unlock/jailbreaking. I have searched here as well as iclarified and am not sure how to proceed. My situation is this:

I have a jailbroken/unlocked 3gs on firmware 3.0 with modem firmware 04.26.08.
My cydia front page states that the device "has SHSHs on file for iphone OS:3.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3, 4.0.

A number of app purchases requires a firmware of 3.1 or above. I also read about inadvertently upgrading the bootrom. I am wondering the best route to upgrade to a firmware higher than my current 3.0, keeping my current jailbreak/unlock and whatever be the preferred bootrom. I am not particular about upgrading to the latest ios4, just something that will be compatible with current appstore purchases. I am confused by the tutorials which seem to be written for brand new purchases in that they list procedures for jailbreak and unlock besides upgrading the firmware.

Thanks much.

You're in pretty good shape. Since you've got the SHSHs on file for all previous revisions, you can't *really* do anything that will permanently lock and jail your phone, which is good.

There's no danger of upgrading the bootrom on the phone, but you would have previously been worried about upgrading the baseband. You will want to determine which bootrom you have, but if you managed to get a 3.1 SHSH, it's extremely likely that you have an old bootrom phone. You'll want to know this for certain, and you can tell by looking at the 3rd, 4th, and 5th numbers in your S/N. The 3rd number (either a 9 or a 0) illustrates whether the phone was built in 2009 or 2010. The 4th and 5th numbers tell what week of the year that it was built. For the 4th and 5th, anything under week 38 or so is reasonable to assume it's an old bootrom. That said, to check for sure (and we all recommend you do), do this:


1) Put your iPhone into DFU mode (how to/tutorial for this step at iClarified).
2) Then go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager on your Windows machine.
3) Look for 'Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller', you will find 'Apple Mobile Device USB Driver' as a subitem there.
4) Right Click and choose 'Properties', navigate to 'Details' tab and select Device Instance Path from the dropdown list box. At the end of this information string you will find the bootrom version, e.g. [iBoot-359.x].

iBoot-359.3 is the old bootrom.
iBoot-359.3.2 is the new bootrom.

New bootrom phones do not presently have a supported iOS 4.0 jailbreak, so if you've got a new bootrom phone, keep hold of your SHSH and wait for the new tools.

For an old bootrom phone, it's pretty easy. Download iOS 4.0 for your device, run it through PwnageTool, shift-restore to your device, and you should be good to go on a jailbroken iOS 4.0.

Originally Posted by n1ckn4m3

You're in pretty good shape. Since you've got the SHSHs on file for all previous revisions, you can't *really* do anything that will permanently lock and jail your phone, which is good.

Thanks much for fast response! Took a few tries to enter DFU, but my bootrom is the old 359.3 and the serial number is year 09, week 30.

Do I need to upgrade to ios4? Can I not upgrade to any of the earlier firmware? Will the upgrade also affect my baseband, and is this okay? I take it that the baseband is the modem firmware 04.26.08? Also, during the upgrade process, I will be essentially re-jailing the phone before jailbreaking and unlocking it?

My apologies for asking perhaps basic questions. Through just your response I learned that a bootrom is also a bootloader!

Originally Posted by alphaalpha

Thanks much for fast response! Took a few tries to enter DFU, but my bootrom is the old 359.3 and the serial number is year 09, week 30.

Do I need to upgrade to ios4? Can I not upgrade to any of the earlier firmware? Will the upgrade also affect my baseband, and is this okay? I take it that the baseband is the modem firmware 04.26.08? Also, during the upgrade process, I will be essentially re-jailing the phone before jailbreaking and unlocking it?

My apologies for asking perhaps basic questions. Through just your response I learned that a bootrom is also a bootloader!

No a bootrom is not really a bootloader, they are two separate (but related) things.

You don't have to go to iOS 4 (but if you have a 3GS, it works well on iOS 4) - you can go to 3.1.3 (which will allow you to install nearly anything from the AppStore - at least for now - eventually iOS 3.x will be end of lifed)

Using Hack that Phone - iPhone 3G S: Restoring "forbidden" firmware you can restore any firmware you have a SHSH for.

Do you rely on unlock? Are you currently jailbroken? As n1ckn4m3 said, with the SHSH you have backed up nothing you can do (at least until iOS 4.1 comes out) can cause you to lose the ability to jailbreak or unlock.

ABout the only thing you can't do is ever go back to 3.0 - the earliest you can go back to is 3.1 if you do start trying different iOS versions. This is because you don't have SHSH for 3.0 or 3.0.1. I don't see that as a problem. iOS 3.1.3 is stable and reliable. Go for that.

Originally Posted by Olethros

You don't have to go to iOS 4 (but if you have a 3GS, it works well on iOS 4) - you can go to 3.1.3 (which will allow you to install nearly anything from the AppStore - at least for now - eventually iOS 3.x will be end of lifed)

Thanks much Olethros. I followed the wizard in iclarified for jailbreaking my 3gs (jailbroken/unlocked 3.0) phone and it lead me to:

iClarified - iPhone - How to Jailbreak Your iPhone 3GS on OS 3.1.2 Using RedSn0w (Windows)

I downloaded the firmware (3.1.2) and did the shift/restore to the custom firmware and I get the following error:

"The iphone XXX could not be restored. This device isn't eligible for the requested build."

I meant to jailbreak to 3.1.3 with redsn0w and unlock with ultrasn0w.

Am not sure what I am not doing right.

Originally Posted by alphaalpha

I downloaded the firmware (3.1.2) and did the shift/restore to the custom firmware and I get the following error:

"The iphone XXX could not be restored. This device isn't eligible for the requested build."

I meant to jailbreak to 3.1.3 with redsn0w and unlock with ultrasn0w.

Did you read the link I posted about restoring forbidden firmware. You need to use your cached SHSH for restore.

You can't jailbreak 3.1.3 with redsn0w (on a 3GS) - it must be pwnagetool or spirit.

Hi,
I have a 3GS phone, with iBoot=359.3, which as per the post below is a old Boot. I downloaded the file iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293_Restore.ipsw and tried to restore it with Pwnage and iTunes (Mac - using Alt+Restore). But i keep getting error 1604, and in DFU mode get error 1600.

Please help..

Thanks,
Abhishek.

Originally Posted by n1ckn4m3

You're in pretty good shape. Since you've got the SHSHs on file for all previous revisions, you can't *really* do anything that will permanently lock and jail your phone, which is good.

There's no danger of upgrading the bootrom on the phone, but you would have previously been worried about upgrading the baseband. You will want to determine which bootrom you have, but if you managed to get a 3.1 SHSH, it's extremely likely that you have an old bootrom phone. You'll want to know this for certain, and you can tell by looking at the 3rd, 4th, and 5th numbers in your S/N. The 3rd number (either a 9 or a 0) illustrates whether the phone was built in 2009 or 2010. The 4th and 5th numbers tell what week of the year that it was built. For the 4th and 5th, anything under week 38 or so is reasonable to assume it's an old bootrom. That said, to check for sure (and we all recommend you do), do this:


1) Put your iPhone into DFU mode (how to/tutorial for this step at iClarified).
2) Then go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager on your Windows machine.
3) Look for 'Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller', you will find 'Apple Mobile Device USB Driver' as a subitem there.
4) Right Click and choose 'Properties', navigate to 'Details' tab and select Device Instance Path from the dropdown list box. At the end of this information string you will find the bootrom version, e.g. [iBoot-359.x].

iBoot-359.3 is the old bootrom.
iBoot-359.3.2 is the new bootrom.

New bootrom phones do not presently have a supported iOS 4.0 jailbreak, so if you've got a new bootrom phone, keep hold of your SHSH and wait for the new tools.

For an old bootrom phone, it's pretty easy. Download iOS 4.0 for your device, run it through PwnageTool, shift-restore to your device, and you should be good to go on a jailbroken iOS 4.0.

Originally Posted by abhi

Hi,
I have a 3GS phone, with iBoot=359.3, which as per the post below is a old Boot. I downloaded the file iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293_Restore.ipsw and tried to restore it with Pwnage and iTunes (Mac - using Alt+Restore). But i keep getting error 1604, and in DFU mode get error 1600.

Please help..

Thanks,
Abhishek.

Do you have iTunes 9.2 installed?

If you restore that IPSW - you will lose jailbreak (unless you have a saved 3.1.2 SHSH)

If that does not help post your log file as described in this thread http://www.hackint0sh.org/f137/130802.htm