What's the latest official iOS that won't upgrade my BB to an unlockable version? 3GS

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forums and I landed here because I'm stuck with an iPhone 3GS - and I'm hoping one of you iExperts can give me a hand ;)

I bought a used iPhone 3GS off the street and it was jailbroken and unlocked. I failed to ask the owner what method was used or any details about the phone other than the capacity :S

I wanted to get rid of all her information on the phone so I immediately went to settings when I got home and did a full data reset. Unfortunately, once the phone rebooted it now gets stuck on the Apple logo with the progress wheel spinning for a few seconds than hangs. It will do nothing until the battery runs out - can't even do a hard/soft reset or turn the phone off.

I decided to try and use redsn0w_win_0.9.6rc16 w/ 4.3.3 iOS firmware to unlock it, however try as I might I'm unable to get the phone into DFU since I can't turn the phone off in the first place. I can let the phone die completely, which obviously turns it off, but when I plug it in as soon as it has enough of a charge to be turn onable (and thus go into DFU) it automatically boots and crashes as mentioned before.

The closest I've been able to get to is getting into Recovery Mode by holding down the power button and plugging in the USB until the phone turns on and gives me the Connect to iTunes logo. iTunes detects it and offers to restore it. However of course it's only going to take an official restore since I have no SHSH blobs for the phone, and much less know what OS or baseband the phone was running...

What would be the latest iOS that I can load onto the phone, using an official restore, that won't upgrade my baseband to an unlockable version? Like I said I have no idea what BB is on it right now, and once I've done that, what method would you recommend to do an untethered jailbreak and unlock?

I just want some feedback and help before I do anything that's going to lock my phone for good since there are no carriers I can work with here in Costa Rica that will take the lock.

Hoping for some help and I much appreciate it!!!

Cody

OK, you fell into the same trap most people fall into. You should *never* "Erase all content and settings" from an iPhone if it has been jailbroken or unlocked, EVER. This wipes the entire iOS revision, the unlock, etc. At this point, you have a locked and non-jailbroken device, which will not function until you successfully complete an iOS restore.

Your only chance at this point is if the person who you bought it from stored their SHSH for iOS 4.0+, in which case you can use TinyUmbrella to do the restore. If the phone was jailbroken, there's a high percentage chance that there are SHSH blobs on saurik's server, get TinyUmbrella and find out.

If you have no SHSH blobs, you can only restore to 4.3.5 (tethered jailbreak only) and if you require the unlock, will need to use older tools to install the iPad baseband to the phone and then unlock it with ultrasn0w. This is very, very, VERY, VERY *not* recommended, it can cause serious problems with GPS usability, and once it has been completed you cannot EVER undo it. Past that, it causes all future upgrades to require special tools or special .IPSW files in order to be successful (else you'll end up with a phone stuck in recovery mode that has to be restored again).

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

In short, I hate to say it, but you shot yourself in the foot by doing the "Erase all content and settings". This is an extremely common problem and we can't stress enough to people that you absolutely should never do this, it never really does what you want it to do. Unfortunately, you have most likely locked your phone for good by doing the erase.

Cross your fingers and hope for SHSH files, get TinyUmbrella, and tell it to grab the ones available from saurik's server. With any luck, the previous owner has a 4.3.3 SHSH, which is the optimal one for jailbreaking and unlocking.