Sim card in this iphone not supported

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Level 1

29 points

Sim card in this iphone not supported

A friend has given me his old Iphone. When I received it it worked fine, but had all his apps on it etc. I thought the best thing to do was to restore it to factory settings, but now I have just received my new Sim card, when I insert it I get the message: "The Sim card in this Iphone does not appear to be supported", even though the phone is not blocked , and I am using the same carrier (o2) that my friend was with. I cannot use the Iphone at all, besides making emergency calls.

How do I resolve this issue? Does my friend need to reset the ipod on his own mac to get it working again? I am really confused and any help would be much appreciated!

Many thanks.

Iphone 1st gen 16GB, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Dec 17, 2010 7:14 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 17, 2010 7:19 AM in response to buddhahat

If this iPhone was not purchased in the UK when new, unless it was purchased in France the iPhone was not sold as officially unlocked wherever it was sold. The original iPhone was sold in the UK as carrier locked with O2 only. If this iPhone was sold as carrier locked with O2 when new, you should not be receiving this error message. This error message indicates the iPhone was sold as carrier locked with another carrier in another country when new and was hacked to be unlocked to be used with an O2 SIM card.

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Answer 2

buddhahat Author

Level 1

29 points

Dec 17, 2010 7:31 AM in response to Allan Sampson

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response. Having spoke to my friend he says he originally got it on ebay, but that it was initially an 02 phone and he was certainly using it with 02.

I'm going to try and restore the iphone on his computer - will that make any difference or not?

If it is jailbroken as you suggest, is there anything I can do to get it to work with my new 02 sim?

Many thanks,

Ben

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Answer 3

Dec 17, 2010 7:42 AM in response to buddhahat

You're welcome.

Having spoke to my friend he says he originally got it on ebay, but that it was initially an 02 phone and he was certainly using it with 02.

If this iPhone was sold in the UK when new, it was sold as carrier locked with O2. The ONLY country where the original iPhone was sold as officially unlocked was France.

If this iPhone was sold as carrier locked with O2 when new, you wouldn't be getting this error message. You would be able to activate the iPhone with your O2 SIM card and associated O2 line/number. The error message indicates this iPhone was hacked to be unlocked.

Restoring the iPhone on his computer will not change this or make any difference.

If the iPhone was hacked to be unlocked, you will need to re-hack the iPhone to unlock it. When restoring an iPhone with iTunes that was hacked to be unlocked, the process re-locks the iPhone to the designated carrier the iPhone was sold as carrier locked when new.

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Answer 4

buddhahat Author

Level 1

29 points

Dec 17, 2010 7:49 AM in response to Allan Sampson

Thanks for the further info. So from what you're saying it sounds like the answer is that this Iphone was originally hacked to work with 02, and that my only option now is to re-hack it. I'm presuming you cannot give me any further info on how I might go about re-hacking it as it's against board rules - is that right?

Thanks again for the info,

Ben

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Answer 5

Dec 17, 2010 7:52 AM in response to buddhahat

Hacking an iPhone is against Apple's license agreement for the iPhone and is not supported by Apple directly or indirectly via these discussions. Doing so also voids the warranty, which is not a concern with this iPhone.

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

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Answer 6

buddhahat Author

Level 1

29 points

Dec 17, 2010 7:58 AM in response to Allan Sampson

Thanks Allan - thought as much.

I think I will try my friend first and possibly return it to him rather than go through the hassle of hacking.

Cheers,

Ben

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