Bought a used jailbroken/unlocked/"bricked" 3Gs- Need help getting it to "normal"

[fabes34]

OK here's the deal -
I bought an "unlocked" iPhone 3GS off of craigslist due to the fact that my old one went swimming in the lake. Anyway I had no experience with "unlocked" or "jailbroken" iphones and wasn't ready for what I was getting into. So first thing that I did was to plug it into my computer and try to restore it so I could put my back-up of my old iphone on it. The phone restored almost all the way and then it gave me the 1015 error. I tried tons of different videos on fixing it and I finally found one that worked.
- I put my iPhone in DFU mode
- Manually downloaded OS 4.1
- Shift + Restore to OS 4.1 through iTunes
-When the 1015 popped up I opened tinyumbrella and got it to "exit recovery"
-Now I have a fully functioning phone so I stupidly tried to restore it again, and what do you know I got the 1015 again. (Then repeated the above steps to get it back to working running OS 4.1

- So now I have a phone that works fine running 4.1, I would really like to get it to run 4.3 since I can't transfer the backup of my old iPhone because it was running 4.3. Is there a way to fix this?

ANY help would be VERY appreciated. I have spent a lot of time and frustration on this, also if you could explain it to me in laymens terms, my computer jargon isn't up to par.
Thanks!
Ben

 

[bab2010]

A 3GS iPhone? Connect the phone to iTunes and click "restore" iTunes will upgrade your iPhone to the latest iOS 4.3.4

 

[prb]

I bought an unlocked/jailbroken iphone 3gs with firmware 4.1 off of ebay and I too did a restore not knowing what would happen and now my phone is stuck in recovery mode. I also get the 1015 error code right before the update finishes installing. I tried to follow your steps to get out by putting my phone in DFU mode, downloading and installing 4.1 and then using the exit recovery button in tiny umbrella, however my phone still returns to recovery mode a few seconds later. Could you please send me the steps you used along with the links you downloaded the software from. I just want my phone to work and I'm at a loss because I feel like my money has gone down the drain. I would appreciate any help.