Good day chaps,

Right now i'm running with firmware 4.1 with baseband 06.15.00 (hacked ipad baseband) on a 3GS What I'd like to do is upgrade to 5.0 if I can. It's very crucial that I be able to unlock my phone as I live in Europe now and my phone is from when I lived in America.

I'm planning on using the Redsnow hack (Jailbreak iOS 5 - iPhone 4, 3GS, iPod Touch 4G, 3G, iPad [Tutorial] - Jailbreak 5.0.1 / 5 / 4.3.5 / 4.3.2 / 4.3.3 / 4.3.4 Untethered - iPad 2 Jailbreak) when the IPSW is done downloading. Last year I messed my phone up for a long time when I updated from 3.1.2 to 4.1, I'm trying to avoid getting in over my head again.

*My main questions are, is this hacked baseband thing going to be a factor when I try to update this new jailbreak?

*Do I need to update through Itunes to 5.0 before I install a jailbreak? Or can I install 5.0 for the first time through RedSn0w ?

Thank you in advance, I'm a semi-newb but I have Jailbroken my phone a couple of times in the past...

1) Yes, the hacked baseband impacts every restore you will ever do on the device. Go back to the documentation with it to understand how much it impacts it. You can no longer restore to a standard IPSW and you can no longer complete a typical restore. There are specific instructions required to successfully upgrade a device running 06.15.00 and it will not work without following them.

2) There is no program that will upgrade your device to another iOS revision without using iTunes -- this is a common misconception. PwnageTool creates custom firmware, redsn0w jailbreaks your CURRENTLY RUNNING revision of iOS, but to upgrade, you always have to use iTunes.

3) Most importantly, the only jailbreak for iOS 5 on the 3GS is TETHERED (unless you have the 05.08 bootrom, which less than about 5% of 3GS owners have), with a semi-tether that is somewhat hacky but works. This means that in most cases, your phone will need to be plugged into the computer to reboot or it will just stick at the recovery screen. It has been announced that an untether for iOS5 has been found, but likely will not be publicly released until after 5.0.1 in order to ensure that the hole is not plugged immediately after they release it.

So, imo, you should stay on 4.1 if you can't go to 4.3.3 (do you have a 4.3.3 SHSH?) I understand that iOS 4 isn't iOS 5, and that iOS 5 has a lot of cool features, however, if you rely on an unlock and jailbreak for your phone to work, iOS 5 really just isn't ready for the prime-time yet. A lot of programs still don't work on it, a lot of things can still bootloop the phone, and the combination of you being on the 06.15.00 baseband makes it difficult to complete the upgrade at all. The earliest I would upgrade a jailbroken/unlocked phone is when 5.0.1 and the untether have been released.

Thank you, that is sound advice.