Hi everyone, so I think I screwed up large and need your help. I freely admit that I do not know what I'm doing. I tried to research a bunch and read alot but I must have screwed something up. Please help....So this is what I did:

I bought an Iphone 3gs used. It had 4.3 on it when I bought it. and baseband 5.16.01. It was locked to Rogers carrier in Canada. Me being impatient after having read that there's no current reliable jailbreak or unlock decided to try to downgrade the firmware. I used Tiny Umbrella to restore to 4.1 (after saving SHSH). I have no idea if owner before me had jailbroken before. Then it got stuck in recovery loop and Tiny Umbrella kept crashing when I tried to “Fix Recover”. So I tried IREB and when it did it's thing, suddenly on Itunes it didn't recognize my Iphone under it's name and it was now called just "Iphone" All of the info about the version etc. also disappeared on Itunes. I had backed up my Iphone before I did all this but it was all gone now! I can't find it unless it's somewhere I don't know. Also, now it says that the phone needs to be activated, it is now on emergency screen saying there is no sim card. The phone was originally activated on the Roger's carrier and now it is no longer activated, it's gone!

So I probably made it worse after this...ugh. I read that GreenPoison can activate it without Sim so I downloaded it and attempted to jailbreak and I got up to the GreenPoison logo and now I'm still on the emergency no sim screen. I have NO idea what to do now...did I just f*&% up my phone? HELP!

Originally Posted by KnowNothin

Hi everyone, so I think I screwed up large and need your help. I freely admit that I do not know what I'm doing. I tried to research a bunch and read alot but I must have screwed something up. Please help....So this is what I did:

I bought an Iphone 3gs used. It had 4.3 on it when I bought it. and baseband 5.16.01. It was locked to Rogers carrier in Canada. Me being impatient after having read that there's no current reliable jailbreak or unlock decided to try to downgrade the firmware. I used Tiny Umbrella to restore to 4.1 (after saving SHSH). I have no idea if owner before me had jailbroken before. Then it got stuck in recovery loop and Tiny Umbrella kept crashing when I tried to “Fix Recover”. So I tried IREB and when it did it's thing, suddenly on Itunes it didn't recognize my Iphone under it's name and it was now called just "Iphone" All of the info about the version etc. also disappeared on Itunes. I had backed up my Iphone before I did all this but it was all gone now! I can't find it unless it's somewhere I don't know. Also, now it says that the phone needs to be activated, it is now on emergency screen saying there is no sim card. The phone was originally activated on the Roger's carrier and now it is no longer activated, it's gone!

So I probably made it worse after this...ugh. I read that GreenPoison can activate it without Sim so I downloaded it and attempted to jailbreak and I got up to the GreenPoison logo and now I'm still on the emergency no sim screen. I have NO idea what to do now...did I just f*&% up my phone? HELP!

Ddid you ever confirm that you actually have a 4.1 (or 4.2.1) SHSH. Apple has long since stopped signing these versions - so unless the previous owner had jailbroken and saved SHSH - you are out of luck

Greenpois0n CANNOT activate without sim card.

Your baseband 5.16.01 CANNOT be unlocked - downgrading the OS doesn't downgrade the baseband.

If you genuinely managed to restore to 4.1 then you should use redsn0w 0.8.6rc8 to jailbreak and hacktivate.
You still will only be able to use the phone with a Rogers SIM card (cannot unlock baseband 5.16.01)

The only unlock option is the iPad baseband (6.15.00) but I strongly recommend you DO NOT use this solution.

Originally Posted by Olethros

Ddid you ever confirm that you actually have a 4.1 (or 4.2.1) SHSH. Apple has long since stopped signing these versions - so unless the previous owner had jailbroken and saved SHSH - you are out of luck

Greenpois0n CANNOT activate without sim card.

Your baseband 5.16.01 CANNOT be unlocked - downgrading the OS doesn't downgrade the baseband.

If you genuinely managed to restore to 4.1 then you should use redsn0w 0.8.6rc8 to jailbreak and hacktivate.
You still will only be able to use the phone with a Rogers SIM card (cannot unlock baseband 5.16.01)

The only unlock option is the iPad baseband (6.15.00) but I strongly recommend you DO NOT use this solution.

Thanks so much for replying so fast. No I did not confirm...how do I confirm? Sorry really new to this. I hope I restored it. I will try with RedSnow...if this doesn't work, any suggestions to get it out of this activation screen? I don't have the original SIM card from the guy I bought it with. I'd like to restore back to 4.3 and start over again essentially and just wait for jailbreak/unlock for this version. Is my back up in Itunes gone?

only you can determine if your backup in iTunes is gone or not.
Probably not, as you haven't got past "slide for emergency" yet
If you "set up iPhone" as new then your existing backup.

You can check saved SHSH via TinyUmbrella
The latest iOS version is now 4.3.1 - without a saved SHSH, that is the only iOS version you can restore to.

Originally Posted by Olethros

only you can determine if your backup in iTunes is gone or not.
Probably not, as you haven't got past "slide for emergency" yet
If you "set up iPhone" as new then your existing backup.

You can check saved SHSH via TinyUmbrella
The latest iOS version is now 4.3.1 - without a saved SHSH, that is the only iOS version you can restore to.

So really good new...Redsn0w worked! Thanks so much for your help. So I guess previous owner did jailbreak before! Thank goodness...so now I wait for an unlock for 5.16.01? Thanks again