Help- can't restore iPhone after jailbreak

beakybeecroft · Aug 31, 2011

Hello,
I posted here several days ago as I had a second hand iphone that was sold as 'unlocked' but was in fact jailbroken. It went into a recovery loop as soon as I put connected it to itunes ( I knew nothing about jailbreaking back then) and after much online searching I managed to jailbreakit again using redsnow and 4.1.1 firmware however this was a tethered jailbreak and I wanted it untethered. I posted on this forum as was advised to try greenpo1son which worked and it was now untethered, and unlocked (when it first arrived before I put connected to itunes it would not accept my virgin mobile sim). Yay I thought, but of course as it was running 4.1.1 it wouldn't load some of my apps as newer ones want 4.3 or above. So, after looking online it looked like I should now be able to plug into itunes and do a restore and upgrade to 4.3.5. This was what I wanted as I never wanted a jailbroken phone in the first place and all that I read suggested that it should work fine, my phone just wouldn't be jailbroken any more. Great! However, when I did this, it went through the update process fine, but at the very end I get a 1015 error and my phone returns to recovery loop. All attempts to downgrade using shift/restore have failed (I get error messages such as 20 much sooner, it won't even attempt the downgrade) and attempts to re-jailbreak with redsnow/greenpoison have all failed. I've tried using redsnow to deactivate but this also fails. I've tried using irecovery but can't get the terminal syntax that you have to enter to work. I've also tried recboot to no avail. I edited the etc/hosts file several times with various suggested amendments also to no avail, so I've returned it to normal now. ANY ideas of anything I can do. I do have access to a laptop running windows if there is a better solution that way?

thanks,

C

f4780y · Aug 31, 2011

OK, I'm not sure how you editied your hosts file, but the key to getting 4.3.5 stock installed is to make sure you hosts file is NOT edited in any way which redirects the Apple signature server anywhere else...

So, edit your hosts file and make sure you DELETE any line which mentions gs.apple.com. Don't mess around with commenting or uncommenting. Just get rid of them altogether. They have no business being in there if you want to restore to the current stock IOS.

Do that, then put your phone into DFU mode by following this tutorial - http://www.iphoneforums.net/forum/iphone-jailbreaking-17/dfu-mode-dummies-16020/

When you start iTunes after you are in DFU mode, just press the restore button and the 4.3.5 restore should succeed. The only reason it will fail is if iTunes cannot effectively communicate with Apple, and the typical reason for that is if your hosts file is redirecting the traffic.

Hope that helps.

beakybeecroft · Sep 1, 2011

I am so grateful for your reply but I don't think it can work for me. I have put the phone in DFU mode many times over the last few days to try and sort it, so I know how to do that. However, once I put in in DFU mode, and then open itunes, itunes recognises the phone but puts it back into 'recovery' mode with the usb cable and itunes logo showing. I can then put it into dfu mode again, then itunes refreshes and it does recognise my phone, but the update still doesn't work I'm afraid. I goes right through the process lasting several minutes, and then at the very end I get the 1015 error. I have tried the process with both the standard apple restore and with a downloaded firmware 4.3.5 file, to no avail. Is there a way of going into dfu mode and itunes not then putting the phone back in recovery mode? If so, let me know, as it might help!

beakybeecroft · Sep 1, 2011

UPDATE: just tried putting it into dfu, the opening itunes, but this time on my macbook. this time it didn't throw it out of dfu mode, but after attempting both a straight restore and a alt/restore with downloaded 4.3.5 firmware, it still went through the whole process and left me with a 1015 error! Grrrrrrrrrr, is this a hopeless case?