Restoring Jailbroken iPhone?

u can just restore it, i've had to do it with my phone many times, it doesn't make the phone worse in any way.

That's because some unauthorized modifications have caused damage or can cause damage to the iPhone OS that is not repairable. Thus, Apple warns that this can result in the hacked iPhone becoming permanently inoperable. Unfortunately, there is no way to know in advance if restoring your phone will render it inoperable.

See here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3743

My son tried to plug into itunes and he apparently selected restore. But for some reason my phone is now locked and I am unable to use it. I got this phone through a friend as a gift. Now I can't use it. I brought it in to Rogers and they recommended to change the SIM. Which I did. They placed the phone on ROGERS towers where it wasn't before. They then told me to go home and plug it in and follow the prompts. I went home plugged it in and nothing. I ran a diagnostics thru itunes web page and it tells me that it is synced, but under the Devices tab on the left it shows a iphone plugged in but not able to get into the summary to restore. And a message from itunes reads the SIM card is not supported. I just changed the thing. So what is it?

Marks Reply: Its very rare to get a problem like most people do with jailbroken iPhones. The best thing to do is to basically restore it from the settings on your iphone(do a complete restore) and then link it up and start it off as a new one. Sometimes if you've used an iphone before it gives you the option of sync'ing it with a recent update but best is start it off new and get all the updates for it that way!

Sue's reply: What actually happens? can you turn the phone on? is there anything on screen that shows up with information? its not a good idea to change the SIM either because the network the phone was bought with will only work on that network, if you wanted to use a different network you would have to unlock your iPhone.

I guess this means i can't "restore" it at all and if i did it would render it useless with my O2 sim card?

Correct. You've just discovered the drawback to buying from unofficial sources. Many supposedly unlocked iPhones are actually hacked US ones.

It's a shame you didn't get the seller to confirm whether it was an original UK model or a hacked foreign iPhone before you parted with your money. If it had been mis-sold you may had some comeback via eBay or PayPal.

Discussions of jailbreaking are against the terms of use of this forum, so you're unlikely to be able to get much further help here.

However, if you want to be able to use the phone on O2, whatever you do, don't update to iPhone OS 3.1.3 as there is no unofficial unlock for that OS.

Other than that, I'm afraid you'll have to go elsewhere to discuss your options are far as hacking the phone is concerned.

Really don't understand what the fuss is about. Restore the phone and unlock it again.

@Sue - The people at Rogers aren't very bright. Selling you a new SIM was absolutely stupid, as the original iPhone was never sold in Canada. When your son restored it, he removed the carrier unlock, thus it will only work with AT&T in the states. The phone need to be re-jailbroken and unlocked in order to work on Rogers. You will have to find that info elsewhere however.

Really don't understand what the fuss is about. Restore the phone and unlock it again.

There is no unlock for iPhone OS 3.1.3 and above, so are you suggesting he stay on an old version of the iPhone OS for ever more?

Also, if you had read the first post in this thread, Mark said he didn't want the phone to be jailbroken. That was his whole reason for wanting to restore it.