The Situation
Let me set up “The Situation”, minus the tan and crazy hair style: My brother wanted an iPhone 3GS and so I found him one. I proceeded with the jailbreak by using the UltraSn0w 1.2 software. I grabbed the 3GS 4.2.1 ISPW file. Everything went smooth. This included the baseband change (dangerous right?!)
I booted into the phone perfectly and played around with it. The original owner of the phone was a friend of mine who wanted to get rid of the data – as did my brother. So, being the amazing h4x0r I thought I was, I selected Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. To my surprise, Erase All Content and Settings does exactly what is says – It deletes everything. Look here for destruction details.
The phone hangs on the Apple logo. Minutes go by. Panic ensues. The phone is no longer responding. When I re-boot it continues to hang on the Apple logo. I begin a plan of attack.
I re-installed UltraSn0w 1.2. Nothing changes.
I try to restore from iTunes. This only exacerbates the problem by making the phone go into recovery mode, showing the Connect to iTunes picture. iTunes error 1015 and 1600 are constant.
I used TinyUmbrella to try to get out of DFU. No success.
I realize that this could be a serious problem. I don’t want to brick a phone my brother paid good money for. I would feel so bad I’d end up buying him another one!
The Solution
Hours later, and after many internal tears shed I found a solution!
1 – If your phone is stuck on the “Connect to iTunes” logo, or in DFU mode download iREB found here.
2 – Run iREB for the appropriate phone type.
3 – Run the Official Pwnage tool found here.
4 – Create the custom ISPW file for your phone with the Pwnage Tool
5 – Continue to follow the steps by the Pwnage Tool. (which includes shift+click restore in iTunes using your custom ISPW file.)
6 – ?????
7 – PROFIT!
OK those last 2 aren’t really part of the steps, but your phone should now be restored, jail broken and ready to be unlocked! Good luck!
