Preparing the iPhone 3G S for jailbreaking/unlocking (easy method)

Updated: September 25, 2009

Who is this guide for?

• 3G S iPhones that have a 3.0 or 3.0.1 ECID SHSH on file with Cydia.
• 3G S iPhones on 3.0 or 3.0.1 firmware only!
• Those interested in jailbreaking and unlocking the iPhone 3G S.
• Make sure to Sync your iPhone prior to using this tutorial. This way your personal information, and any App Store applications will be preserved.
• Requires at least iTunes version 8.2.
• I used OS X 10.5.7.

The iPhone Dev Team made this post about how to prepare the iPhone 3G S for jailbreaking and unlocking. If you have already updated to 3.1 firmware then hope may be lost forever.

The downside to this process is the team says you have to go through the restore process twice (once in normal mode, once in DFU mode) to retrieve the files you need. Others have posted on the team's site stating that while normal mode produces only one file (the iBEC), DFU mode produces both files (iBEC and iBSS) needed, and that the iBEC file is identical from both restores. So you only need to perform the DFU mode restore. You can take that for what it's worth, I did it both ways.

This tutorial is different from the "harder method" tutorial in that you aren't having to try and grab the folders you need yourself, live while the restore is progressing. We will use a Terminal command which will place the files on your desktop for you, where you have all the time in the world to put them some place safe.

Step 1.

Retrieve your ECID from your iPhone. What you are about to do should not pose any problems for the iPhone. Should something go wrong anyway, don't blame me. You hack at your own risk.

Turn off the iPhone. Once it is off, press and hold the Home button.




Plug in the USB cable to your iPhone and your computer, while holding the Home button. The Apple logo will appear on the iPhone, then the recovery mode graphic will appear.




iTunes will launch (or it may not), and display a pop up message about recovery mode. Click OK on this message.




Click the Apple logo in the menu bar on your computer. Select About This Mac.




Click More Info...




In the Contents section of the screen, go to Hardware and expand this menu if it is not already. Go down to USB and highlight it. Go to the USB Device Tree section of the screen. Go to USB High-Speed Bus and open this menu if it isn't already open. Click on the line that says Apple Mobile Device (Recovery Mode). Look below, and in the line that says Serial Number, look for the letters ECID. The 16 characters after the colon are your iPhone 3G S' ECID number. Write this down or copy and paste it somewhere.









To get your iPhone out of recovery mode just hold down the Power (sleep/wake) button until it shuts off. The iPhone will reboot. I find you can just let it sit like this and about ten minutes it will exit recovery mode on its own.

Step 2.

Sync your iPhone with iTunes prior to performing anything else in this tutorial! The iPhone should get backed up automatically once you connect it to iTunes, but better safe than sorry.

Step 3.

Download the iPhone 3G S 3.0 firmware here, or the 3.0.1 firmware here. Note: Safari likes to open "safe" files by default. You must turn this feature off for this download to work correctly. Click "Safari", select "Preferences", from the "Geneal" tab uncheck the box that says "Open "safe" files after downloading". Otherwise just use Firefox to download this firmware file.

Next make a folder called iPhone 3G S jailbreak files (or whatever you want) and place the firmware file in it.

Step 4.

I am going to perform a normal and a DFU restore in this tutorial. Do you need to? Who knows? I believe in being painfully thorough (big surprise huh), so I'm doing both.

Press the Option key on your Mac, then click the Restore button in iTunes.

iTunes will open a browser window. Navigate to your iPhone 3G S jailbreak files folder. Select the 3.0 (or 3.0.1) firmware, and click Open.




DO NOT DO ANYTHING YET!  You will be warned that you are about to restore your iPhone.




Go to your Mac's Applications folder, then to the Utilities folder. Launch the Terminal.app program. You will see a window similar to this open.




Copy and paste this line of text into the Terminal window:


Note: A reader writes: "Just a quick note that the command below wouldn't work for me. I finally figured it out. I use tcsh as my shell instead of the (I think) default of zsh. I just typed in "sh" to use the basic shell & then your command below worked perfectly."

Once you do this, the Terminal will constantly reply back that it hasn't found the folder we need. It will be there shortly.




Now click the Restore button in that iTunes pop up.




When the status message Preparing iPhone for restore... appears, the iBEC.n88ap.RELEASE.dfu file will appear on your desktop




Once this file appears, click on the Terminal window, then press the Ctrl key and press the C key. This will terminate the program running in the Terminal.




Now sit back and wait for this restore to finish. I then made a folder called Restore mode iBEC, and put the iBEC file inside it, then put that folder into my iPhone 3G S jailbreak files folder.

Step 5.

Meanwhile, back in iTunes, check the Restore from backup button and click Continue. Your backup will be restored in a few seconds. You will of course have to cancel the lengthy syncing process if that starts.

If iTunes gave you an error before getting to this screen (I received error 4), just unplug your USB cable and plug it back in.

Step 6.

Now we have to enter DFU mode and restore the iPhone again, to get the iBEC.n88ap.RELEASE.dfu file, and the iBSS.n88ap.RELEASE.dfu file.

With iTunes open, turn off the iPhone. Press and hold the Home and Power (sleep/wake) buttons.




Count to ten. Release the Power (sleep/wake) button.




Continue holding the Home button until a pop up message appears from iTunes




Press the Option key on your Mac, then click the Restore button.




iTunes will open a browser window. Navigate back to your iPhone 3G S jailbreak files folder, select the 3.0 (or 3.0.1) firmware and click Open.




DO NOT DO ANYTHING YET!   You will be warned that you are about to restore your iPhone.




Go to your Mac's Applications folder, then to the Utilities folder. Launch the Terminal.app program (it's ok if you still have it open from before). You will see a window similar to this open.




Copy and paste this line of text into the Terminal window:


Once you do this, the Terminal will constantly reply back that it hasn't found the folder we need. It will be there shortly.




Now click the Restore button in that iTunes pop up.




When the status message Preparing iPhone for restore... appears, the iBEC.n88ap.RELEASE.dfu, and the iBSS.n88ap.RELEASE.dfu files will appear on your desktop




Once these files appear, click on the Terminal window, then press the Ctrl key and press the C key. This will terminate the program running in the Terminal.




I then made a folder called DFU mode iBEC and iBSS. I put both file inside it, then put that folder into my iPhone 3G S jailbreak files folder. Now just wait for the restore process to finish.

Step 7.

Once again you can restore your phone from a backup. Then sync it, and just wait for 3.1 firmware to arrive along with the jailbreak and unlock.