vB Easy Archive - :: NEW USERS READ THIS FIRST - Stuff you probably won't find in the WIKI ::

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:: NEW USERS READ THIS FIRST - Stuff you probably won't find in the WIKI ::
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Posted by: Drakkhen

Hey guys,

I've recieved many, MANY message over the last few weeks ranging from questions about jailbreaking to unlocking. The amount of experience the individual has had will often dictate how the dialogue continues. However, over the last little while, there seems to be an influx of newer users, undoubtably drawn here by news that there has been an unlock for new iPhones.

Over the course of the week I continually found it hard to explain even simple concepts to newer users, since I would find myself using terms that I just assumed that the person on the other end would understand. I took for granted that everyone I was helping would just know what 'DFU' means when in fact they only joined the forum 4 minutes ago.

Sometimes I would spend a considerable amount of time explaining something only to find out that it wasn't even what the user needed because their interpretation of 'unlock' was different than what my understanding of it was. This wastes the time of both parties and usually turns into frustration before anything positive was accomplished.

So I've compiled a little guide that will explain some of the things a user may not understand when visiting this place for the first few times. Hopefully this will 'level the playingfield' for newbies, especially when they are forming questions.

- Terminology and Concepts -

BNIB – Brand New In Box

O.O.B - This is just an acronym for 'out of box' or 'brand new'

(HOME) button – The round button on the front of your iPhone

[SLEEP] button – The long button along the top of your iPhone

DFU Mode - You don't need to know what it stands for; you just need to know how to get there. Hold down the [SLEEP] and (HOME) button until your iPhone disconnects from your computer. I know, some people say "10 seconds" or whatever, but the BEST way to do this is to turn on your speakers and listen for the device to disconnect from the USB interface. When you hear this, let go of the [SLEEP] button, but KEEP ON HOLDING the (HOME) button until you hear the device connect again.

** Please note that while in DFU mode, you SHOULD NOT see anything on your screen. If you see a yellow triangle (1.0.2), an iPod cable (1.1.1) or a picture of your mom, you ARE NOT in DFU mode.

Restore Mode - This is the normal restore mode that sees less use than DFU mode, especially in the unlocking community. Unlike DFU mode, you WILL see an image of a yellow triangle or an iTunes cable on your screen while you are in this mode. Some recent jailbreak utilites call for this mode, and I am including it in here becaue it also emphasizes the difference between this mode and DFU. To get into restore mode, turn off your phone by olding down the [SLEEP] button for 5 seconds then sliding the red bar across the screen with your finger. Once the screen turns off, contiunually hold down the (HOME) button while you press the [SLEEP] button. Hold the (HOME) button until you see either a yellow triangle (1.0.2) or a 'connect to iTunes' picture on the screen.

Jailbreak – Alters the iPhone’s file system to allow writing and modifying data in specific areas. In turn, this allows 3rd party applications to be installed.

Unlock – Let’s a SIM other than AT&T operate as a cellular device in any given GSM provider. Note that when you’re at the “slide to unlock” screen on your iPhone, which is not the same ‘unlock’.

** You'll hear a lot of talk about 'unlocking 1.1.2, or unlocking 1.1.1. This, technically speaking is actually incorrect, as the 'unlock' actually occurs on the baseband of the corresponding firmware. When someone says 'I unlocked 1.1.1', they are really saying 'I unlocked the baseband 4.01'. Baseband 4.01, as I will explain a bit later, is the corresponding baseband to the 1.1.1 firmware.

Activation – Pairs the SIM card with the phone, and for all practical purposes lets the user access the springboard (home screen)

Firmware – This is the OS of the iPhone. Current popular versions are 1.0.2, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, and of course 1.1.3

Baseband – The component of the iPhone that handles all the communication aspects of the the iPhone

* Upgrading / Downgrading - When upgrading your firmware, the baseband upgrades alongside the firmware. If you are at 1.1.1 with its corresponding baseband 4.01 and you upgrade to 1.1.2, you will also upgrade your baseband to 4.02. ** Unlike upgrading, when you DOWNGRADE firmware, the baseband does NOT tag along. Instead, the baseband will stay the newest version. If you downgrade to 1.0.2 from 1.1.2 using DFU mode, you will still have the 1.1.2 baseband on your phone. This is not a bad thing. We just need to BE AWARE OF THIS.

As mentioned above, each firmware revision has its own corresponding baseband:

1.0.2 -> 3.14
1.1.1 -> 4.01
1.1.2 -> 4.02
1.1.3 -> 4.03

Please note that it is essential that you understand that because of this behaviour of upgrading and downgrading, have firmware 1.0.2 with baseband 4.02 on your phone by merely restoring from 1.1.2 to 1.0.2

Virginizing – returning the phone to 1.0.2 with baseband 3.14. This is done via scripts, and there are many out there – some require minimal user input while other are more involved. I am mentioning this only because some people have this misconception that downgrading the FW is the same as virginizing, which is not the case. When someone says “I virginized it”, it means (for all practical purposes of this guide) they downgraded the firmware along with the baseband and in turn, locked, re-jailed and deactivated the phone.

Bootloader - The bootloader is bascially the BIOS of the phone, and for all practical purposes of this guide, will be treated as such. The most important thing to know in this case is WHAT BOOTLOADER VERSION DO YOU HAVE? Currently, there are mainly two version floading around: v3.9, and v4.6. If you are unsure of which version you have, you can check it by finding out what week your phone was manufactured. To do this, look at the 4th and 5th digits of your serial number. Example:

Serial Number: 7T341WDNWH3 - This phone is week 41, and will most likely have bootloader v3.9. You may continue with the guide.
Serial Number: 7N445NNTPJ1 - This phone is week 45, and will most CERTAINLY have bootloader v4.6. This guide is not for you.

If your phone is manufactured in week 45 or later, you will most certainly have the new. If your phone was manufactured before week 45, then you most likely have v3.9 of the booloader.

Posted by: Drakkhen

- Bootloader 3.9 vs. 4.6 -

We can, for all intents and purposes, have our way with 3.9 - There's nothing we can't do (with our iPhone) using that bootloader that a completely legit one can. This is one of the reasons we've been able to keep up with the baseband unlocks as Apple releases new baseband. One of the defining differences between 3.9 and the newer 4.6 is how it handles baseband downgrades and over-writes.

If you've downgraded basebands before, the following might make a bit more sense to you. When downgrading basebands, one of the key components that lets you do this is the secpack file that ieraser uses. I'm not going to go into detail regarding the inner workings of ieraser, but it looks for the 'secpack' file in its process to modify the baseband. BL3.9 allows you to use a secpack version that is EQUAL or NEWER to the current baseband to make modifications.

For example, if you were downgrading from 4.02 (from 1.1.2) to 3.14 (from 1.0.2) baseband with a phone that is BL3.9, you would be able to use the secpack from 1.1.2 to make the baseband modifications.

However, BL4.6 is a bit different as it will only allow you to use a secpack version that is NEWER to the current baseband to make the same modifications. If you doing the same downgrade as mentioned above with a BL4.6 phone, you would need to use the secpack from 1.1.3 to downgrade the 1.1.2 phone.

The same goes for an unlock. Unlocks on BL3.9 phones are easy because since you are re-writting the baseband, you can use the secpack from the same version of the baseband.

On BL4.6, you would need the secpack from a newer baseband to make a modification on your current baseband, making it impossible to unlock the phone on your current baseband without a newer one being released.

What does this mean? People with BL4.6 will always be one (1) baseband version behind of the newest, while BL3.9 phones will be unlocked almost immediately (barring other development problems).

Posted by: sanos

Thanks Drakkhen for all the guides, im telling you, if people were like you were around when i first started out at this forum i would have had a lot easier time figuring stuff out....
Your time and efforts are much appreciated.

Posted by: dhendriksen

Thanks Drak. I have been getting 3 - 5 PM's per day asking for help. I will make all new users read this first, it will save so much time.

Thanks again.

Posted by: smoochysquirrel

Thats very helpful Drak me old mate.

Well set out too.
Cheers

Posted by: cingular#1

please sticky this!!

Posted by: RonaldMcdonald

Excellent.

Posted by: iamthedudeman

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanos

Thanks Drakkhen for all the guides, im telling you, if people were like you were around when i first started out at this forum i would have had a lot easier time figuring stuff out....
Your time and efforts are much appreciated.

I second that. Good work bro. I know most of the terms and have been here for awhile, but hacking is not my thing and these help out alot.

You da man.

Posted by: Drakkhen

How do you get this thing stickied?

Posted by: cingular#1

tell a mod..

Posted by: Stormy

Excellent work Drakkhen

Thanks

Posted by: Drakkhen

This was in response to a post that was deleted by the OP on this thread. The post asked:
I heard that using new ZiPhone method to unlock the iPhone will downgrade your BL to 3.9 but also you will not be able to upgrade the BL in the future. Is this true?
The answer is yes AND no.

Right now, there is no easy guide or method that you'll be able to find that will help youu upgrade to back to 4.6. This is not a fault of the ZiPhone method of downgrading. The simple fact is, no matter if you'be downgraded to 3.9 from 4.6, or if you started at 3.9 O.O.B, there's is no BL upgrade.

I think part of the reason one hasn't really been developed is, that there is zero demand. 3.9 is the bootloader of choice as it is still less restrictive. People who start off with a 3.9BL have obviously no reason to upgrade, and people who have 4.6BL phones either want to stay put or downgrade. So, unless there is actualy incentive to go to 4.6 I don't see one actually being developed.

I'm sure that upgrading from 3.9 to 4.6 is possible; just as it was possible to downgrade, but why? If we answer 'why', then we'll get an end user solution to do so.

L.

Posted by: forenplayer

I used unlock instructions from IUNLOCK and ICLARIFIED sites, and they both say to put your phone in normal recovery mode not DFU, and that's how i unlocked my phones with no issues, is there big diffrence between DFU and normal restored mode? Or it's just less chances for something to go wrong?

Posted by: Drakkhen

Your computer and its HAL actually detects a DFU enabled phone as an entirely different device (and uses a different driver) compared to a phone that is in normal restore mode. This alone should tell you that there is something intrinsicly different about the two modes. When doing a restore, the method in which your computer uses to communicate to the phone differs vastly between the two.

L.

Posted by: DerekMartin

Hey Drakkhen,

After all the great guides that you supply this community with, it is about time you got yourself sticked!
Thanks for all you help
Derek

Posted by: Stormy

Drakkhen

Thank you very much again.

One last question, is there a big advantage of keeping the 4.6 BL, I mean from useability or feature stand points cause I dont really understand the difference that much. If not then, I will go ahead and use Ziphone to unlock my 16gb

Thanks

Posted by: Drakkhen

There is a difference in functionality, but not at the user level - only at the baseband level. Right now, if there is an advantage, it would be BL3.9, as it can run the newest baseband unlocked.

Posted by: ramb0

There's quite a lot of discussion around the net regarding BL 3.9 vs 4.6.

Another reason why some people want to stay on BL4.6 is due to the possibilities of CUSTOM Bootloaders. As mentioned, we can modify the Bootloader if it's version 4.6 (for example, downgrade to 3.9). This means if a custom BL is developed, only people that are currently on 4.6 would be able to load the custom BL. How ever, it may also be possible for someone to develop a hack that allows upgrading/modifying of the 3.9BL as well, although this is unknown.

Custom Bootloader? Well, a Custom Bootloader could potentially mean that all future versions of the iPhone will be easily hacked, as the Bootloader is the main key of the iPhone.

Keep in mind though, the time will come where Apple released a new iPhone, which will no doubt have different hardware properties, and include everything Apple has learnt so far from the hacking scene.

Posted by: garykaifong

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramb0

There's quite a lot of discussion around the net regarding BL 3.9 vs 4.6.

Another reason why some people want to stay on BL4.6 is due to the possibilities of CUSTOM Bootloaders. As mentioned, we can modify the Bootloader if it's version 4.6 (for example, downgrade to 3.9). This means if a custom BL is developed, only people that are currently on 4.6 would be able to load the custom BL. How ever, it may also be possible for someone to develop a hack that allows upgrading/modifying of the 3.9BL as well, although this is unknown.

Custom Bootloader? Well, a Custom Bootloader could potentially mean that all future versions of the iPhone will be easily hacked, as the Bootloader is the main key of the iPhone.

Keep in mind though, the time will come where Apple released a new iPhone, which will no doubt have different hardware properties, and include everything Apple has learnt so far from the hacking scene.

Someone (sorry I'm a bit lazy to go back to check who while I'm typing the reply) mentioned that one possible answer why there is not yet any upgrade from 3.9BL to 4.6BL is because of zero demand. Assuming that this is THE reason, and if there really comes a Custom BL which requires 4.6BL, wouldn't it then attract users' attention/interest in going back to 4.6BL, and thus generate enough demand? Just for argument sake. ;-)

Actually, I found this thread really helpful. I still haven't got myself an iPhone, partially because of this BL downgrading issue. Now, I think at least I sort of understand what a BL does, and what a downgrade could possibly mean. I think I'm going to order one, but yet I want to wait until the upcoming Apple Event which I was told will be on 6-Mar-08. Is that correct?

Ciao,
Gaz

Posted by: JosueCebs

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakkhen

This was in response to a post that was deleted by the OP on this thread. The post asked:
I heard that using new ZiPhone method to unlock the iPhone will downgrade your BL to 3.9 but also you will not be able to upgrade the BL in the future. Is this true?
The answer is yes AND no.

Right now, there is no easy guide or method that you'll be able to find that will help youu upgrade to back to 4.6. This is not a fault of the ZiPhone method of downgrading. The simple fact is, no matter if you'be downgraded to 3.9 from 4.6, or if you started at 3.9 O.O.B, there's is no BL upgrade.

I think part of the reason one hasn't really been developed is, that there is zero demand. 3.9 is the bootloader of choice as it is still less restrictive. People who start off with a 3.9BL have obviously no reason to upgrade, and people who have 4.6BL phones either want to stay put or downgrade. So, unless there is actualy incentive to go to 4.6 I don't see one actually being developed.

I'm sure that upgrading from 3.9 to 4.6 is possible; just as it was possible to downgrade, but why? If we answer 'why', then we'll get an end user solution to do so.

L.

I have one possible answer to why..

My reason at least would be for return or repair to apple. A downgraded Bootloader would be an automatic flag for apple that you have modified your iphone. Having the ability to upgrade/restore your original Bootloader version (be it through a GUI or command line) would be a true means of re-virginizing the iPhone in the "rare" cases where it would have to be turned in for repair or replacement.

I say "rare" because after giving this some thought, and as I'm sure you are aware, anyone who is unlocking their iPhone for use outside of AT&T (or even within AT&T but outside of an iPhone plan) will not be hapilly received for repair. According to something I read devices not activated for use in AT&T (with an iPhone plan) will only be covered for the first 30 days of the device warranty. In order to have the regular hardware warranty period of 1 year you must have a currently active AT&T iPhone account when turning in the iPhone for repair or replacement.

Even so, a Bootloader upgrade/restore utility would be nice for those who will be returning or repairing their iPhones within that 30 day period...

Posted by: XFF

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakkhen

Your computer and its HAL actually detects a DFU enabled phone as an entirely different device (and uses a different driver) compared to a phone that is in normal restore mode. This alone should tell you that there is something intrinsicly different about the two modes. When doing a restore, the method in which your computer uses to communicate to the phone differs vastly between the two.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit? I'd like to better understand what the difference is between DFU Mode and Restore Mode. I suspect that in DFU mode, all the user information on the device is disregarded and the DFU driver only interfaces with the bootloader. Is that correct? But does the DFU Mode restore end up the same as a Restore Mode restore and only the way it gets there is different, or are there differences in how the phone is provisioned with either method? Why do the two modes exist in the first place? Was DFU mode only designed as a last resort when all else fails? If so, what's the tradeoff?

Posted by: Drakkhen

Quote:

Originally Posted by XFF

Well, the computer system actually sees the unit as a completely different device when it is connected through DFU mode when compared to restore mode.

My guess is that the difference is in how data is actually written to the device. DFU mode uses a more low-level way of writing; possibly even using your computer's file structure logic to place data on the phone, while the regular restore mode may use part of the iPhone's file structure logic as a filter.

A good analogy would probably be writing to your file system on your PC using Windows NTFS (in windows) vs. creating a bootsector that lets you load multiple OS'es...

L.

Posted by: Jaguilera85

Very good information. Thanks!

Posted by: gnodmena

hi guys i really want an iphone since i just broke my pearl a couple days ago. so i guess my question is what is the worst thing that could happen to the phone once i unlock it and jailbrake it and all that good stuff ??? oh yeah i will be putting a rogers sim in it. is there anything i should be aware of??
thanks

Posted by: onli1

very imformative, thanks alot for you help in this forum

Posted by: swankmetal

is all the info in this thread still accurate? just wondering because i just got one of the refurbs and it came with 1.1.2, week 40. from what i've read, this is a good thing. not quite sure what route i should use for unlocking, etc. though.

Posted by: Sethisis

I would also like to hijack this thread, and not clog up with a new post.

can I still jailbreak my phone and use it on ATT fully?

I currently have the iphone plan and just dont want to screw anything up by doing this. Didn't see anythingin the faq or wiki. Probably a stupid question

Posted by: Drakkhen

Quote:

Originally Posted by swankmetal

is all the info in this thread still accurate? just wondering because i just got one of the refurbs and it came with 1.1.2, week 40. from what i've read, this is a good thing. not quite sure what route i should use for unlocking, etc. though.

The information here does not take into account refurbs, as apple may choose to upgrade the bootloader, or keep it the same.

L.

Posted by: help_questions

perhaps someone could add to this the mistakes some people that end up making their iPhone unusable due to failed unlocking/jailbreaking.

Posted by: shakenbake

Quote:

Originally Posted by XFF

Good info from the hackintosh site:

http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=27348

Posted by: sam1900

Really you have done a great job Drakkhen. You have clearly specified the features and advanced terminologies of iphone. It helped me a lot to know more about my iphone.

====================
Sam
Used Apple Laptops

Posted by: @theCellStore

As someone new to the forums I thank you so very much for defining so well the terms and language!

Posted by: spearchunk

Hey all. I'm new here and just wanna say wow, thanks! Great forum and info. Still reading through...

Posted by: victorianpest

I have a new 3g iphone with the latest up grade 2.0.2 I would like to make a phone conversation recording with Iphone is it possible with the soft ware itunes the iphone will not support this can any one help

Posted by: sabillondesigns

good info! thanks