Jailbreak and Unlock Non-Activated iPhone 3GS in India

Posted on Sunday, August 16, 2009


All right! So i got this shiny new iPhone 3GS from a friend of mine who wanted to know if it would work with a local carrier in India. There were a couple of problems

  • 3GS is newer in India, though it is also quite new in the US
  • The phone was not activated with the original AT&T carrier.

First, I did not understand what is the difference between Jailbreak and Unlock. So I googled and this is what I found. Jailbreak is when you would want to install external applications on the iPhone. Hence when you want to install Cydia on your iPhone then you need to Jailbreak it first. Unlock is the second step where you want to make the iPhone work with any carrier.

I followed the following steps in the order mentioned below.

Most of the steps that I followed were from this original post

  1. Updated the software version on the existing iPhone 3GS from 3.0 to 3.0.1 – Plugin your iPhone to the computer which has iTunes. iTunes would detect the iPhone and would tell you that there is a new version of software available and if you would like to upgrade. Upgrade!
  2. Next, download the 3.0 IPSW file, 3.0.0 (3GS): iPhone2,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw and save it to your desktop. Remember to download this with either FireFox or Chrome. IE converts it to a zip file which redsn0w fails to accept.
  3. Download redsn0w to jailbreak the software. http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/1269…edsn0w-in-june.  redsn0w would be available at the link below, follow the instructions and download the torrent for your OS. Next, use redsn0w to jailbreak it.The version of redsn0w is 0.8. Point redsn0w to the firmware that you have downloaded in the above step. Once it recognizes the firmware it would give you an option to install Cydia. Install Cydia.
  4. Follow the steps as shown by redsn0w.
  5. Once Jailbroken, we have to install ultrasn0w to unlock it. For installing ultrasn0w you have to go to Cydia which is installed on your iPhone now. We have to add a new repository to Cydia. For that visit the bottom icons and click “manage” then click “sources” then click “edit” on the right top, then hit “add” on the left top. Now, add the following repository http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com and install ultrasn0w. More information here http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/128573459/ultras-now
  6. Once it has downoaded, hit reboot device.
  7. Plugin the new SIM and it should work!

I should be able to post some pics for the process soon. Till then I am sure you would be able to figure that out with the steps.

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