Unlocking without proper SIM

Alright this is what happened. My friend gave me an iPhone, it was Jailbreaked and Unlocked. Me, being an idiot, accidentally updates the firmware to 3.1.3 which factory resets everything. So now the iPhone doesn't read my SIM card anymore.

Reading guides on the internet, it seems I have to Jailbreak the iPhone first to unlock. But even if I Jailbreak the iPhone, it STILL will say that I need a proper SIM to get the phone to work. So I'm still stuck unable to do anything in the iPhone.

So is it actually possible to unlock without a proper SIM card first? Or is the only possible way to unlock is by using a working SIM card first, then unlocking and switching SIM cards?

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Originally Posted by tc250

Alright this is what happened. My friend gave me an iPhone, it was Jailbreaked and Unlocked. Me, being an idiot, accidentally updates the firmware to 3.1.3 which factory resets everything. So now the iPhone doesn't read my SIM card anymore.

Reading guides on the internet, it seems I have to Jailbreak the iPhone first to unlock. But even if I Jailbreak the iPhone, it STILL will say that I need a proper SIM to get the phone to work. So I'm still stuck unable to do anything in the iPhone.

So is it actually possible to unlock without a proper SIM card first? Or is the only possible way to unlock is by using a working SIM card first, then unlocking and switching SIM cards?

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There is no unlock for 3.1.3 at the moment. Nothing will be released until maybe June/July either.
Jailbreak is possible, that should also hacktivate, what jailbreak tool are you using.

I understand that, but that wasn't my question.

My question was, to unlock (when an unlock is out), is it possible to unlock without a working SIM card? Or will I need a working SIM card first to unlock before I switch over to a different SIM card that wasn't meant for the original phone.

It is possible to unlock without a legitimate SIM, that is the 'hacktivation' step that is discussed. There are three terms that get tossed around interchangably which isn't really correct and leads to confusion.

The most basic rundown about this I can give is this:

jailbreak - allow third party apps not signed by apple to run on device
hacktivate - get past the 'plug me into iTunes' screen without a legit SIM
unlock - allow phone to work with non-carrier SIM

Note that this is an extremely basic overview -- it doesn't include all functions or features from each of the terms, just a loose description to help make sense of it all.

So in this case, it is possible to unlock without a legit sim -- you just have to hacktivate the phone first.

Thanks, I'm trying to use sn0wbreeze to hacktivate and jailbreak my phone but when I get to the part where I'm supposed to restore using the custom sn0wbreeze ipsw file, I get that an unknown error has occurred (1600).

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Originally Posted by tc250

Thanks, I'm trying to use sn0wbreeze to hacktivate and jailbreak my phone but when I get to the part where I'm supposed to restore using the custom sn0wbreeze ipsw file, I get that an unknown error has occurred (1600).

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It has been stated before (and I will repeat it again briefly) do not expect any support for sn0wbreeze on this forum. The tool is not recommended or supported by the moderators and admins of this forum. The most reliable and stable tools come from Iphone Dev Team and also from geohot and Chronic Dev team any other teams offering jailbreak and unlock tools should be treated with scepticism.

Use redsn0w instead to jailbreak 3.1.3 on your 3G

Will redsn0w hacktivate the phone as well?

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Originally Posted by tc250

Will redsn0w hacktivate the phone as well?

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Redsn0w auto-detects if it needs to hacktivate or not based on the SIM inserted at the time redsn0w is run

hmm i followed this tutorial for using redsn0w on my iphone 3G, It says 2G but I can't seem to find one for 3G exclusively:
Jailbreak iPhone 3.1.3 with Redsn0w 0.9.4 | Redmond Pie

Where it says:
"Step 6: Sit back and enjoy while redsn0w will do all the rest for you. Once done, your iPhone 2G will restart automatically and you will find it jailbroken with iPhone firmware version 3.1.3."

My iphone doesn't restart at all, but rather it just stays at a black screen and is stuck in recovery mode.

Listen. I've been up and down hundreds of different websites and i need severe help. i bought an iphone 3g off of eBay and i need to activate it. i have no AT&T sim and dont wanna use iTunes. Can anyone provide a solution plz