How to restore without iOS updating?

Yeah, I thought I read somewhere that Apple stopped signing 5.1.1 right away.

I just did this successfully in order to unlock my newly out-of-contract 3GS with AT&T.

Note that I have never jailbreaked my phone.

• Made a backup of my ios 5.1.1 3GS iphone. in iTunes version 10
• Disconnected the iphone from the computer.
• On the iphone, opened Settings - General - Reset
• Selected "Erase All Contents and Settings"
• The iphone took a few minutes to reset to the original settings. The silver apple appeared a couple of times with the progress bar moving slowly until it finally showed a screen with a regular swipe button to gain access.
• I did not swipe to set up the phone but connected it to the computer.
• Was given the satisfying message that my iphone was unlocked. Itunes says to click Continue (there was no continue button, but there was a Done button), so I clicked Done.
• Was immediately presented with the option to restore from a backup.
• I selected the backup I had just made and the phone restored: it took about 15 minutes to restore.
• When my phone displayed the regular swipe-to-open screen I did so and noticed that not all my apps were in place: but then I saw that iTunes was still preparing the phone and it started restoring the Apps that were missing. This took another 15-20 minutes to complete.
• This made me think that I would need to reset all the login credentials for each app installed - but that was not the case: there were some interruptions in the restore process such as itunes crashing, but when I relaunched itunes the restore picked up from where it left off.
• Extra Bonus...that annoying 'Other' category in memory usage also dropped from 1.5 GB to 0.5GB

It sounds perfect.

I am going to give it a try.!!!

apple-id's instructions worked flawlessly on my just-unlocked iPhone 3GS! I am very happy I didn't have to "upgrade" to iOS6.

A couple of points I would add:

After you do "erase all contents and settings" on your phone, and plug it back into your computer, iTunes will display a message "Congratulations! Your iPhone has now been unlocked. Please click on Continue". There was no "Continue" or any other button to click on that screen. I just clicked on some other menu item on the left panel of my iTunes (I think I clicked on iTunes Store, but it really doesn't matter where you click), and then clicked back on the iPhone under Devices. Now, I was prompted with the option to restore from my recent backup. This time, there was a Continue button. I clicked on it, and the rest was just waiting for 10-15 minutes for the phone to getting restored.

My iPhone is just like the way it was -- all apps, email accounts, screensavers. As if nothing changed. Except that it is now unlocked.

I did what apple-id did, it all worked fine, however my apps were not automatically restored.

If you experience the same thing, I will save you the trouble of freaking out (like I did) and tell you what to do:

- go to itunes store

- go to purchased > apps

- there you will see all your apps you've downloaded (even if they were free, and even if you had already deleted them)

- click on the ones you would like back on your iphone. This will download the app.

- go back to your iphone page on itunes and click "apps".

- some of them you will have to click "install", but most of them will be ready to go on your phone.

- click "apply" on bottom right-hand corner

- your apps will go back to your phone, and they will have all the previous settings (i.e. games high-scores, ebay, paypal, bank login, etc)

I had a problem with my 3G, which wasn't working, and I was told to reset my iphone. However this didn't solve my problem, 3G is still not working. Does anyone have any other ideas as to how to get it working? I've reset everything possible except updating to 6.1.1., which I don't want to do. Any other options?

why would you care if you update to ios6????

is your are not jailbreaking then i dont see why....

The original poster said that he thought that iOS6 was a "downgrade" compared to the previous versions. One thing that comes to mind is the new Maps app being worse than the one from Google that shipped with iOS5. With Google's release of a Maps app in the App Store, this is mostly a non issue by now, but this thread started before that release. Others in this thread noted that new iOS updates tend to slow down their previous generation hardware, and prefer to stay on the the older firmware to keep their devices running faster.

That said, the heart of the issue in this thread was that the original poster could not complete the official carrier unlock process without firmware update; however, helpful posts in this thread indicated that a full reset carried out from the "Settings" app on the device was enough to complete the unlock process. This was verifed by several other posters who had success with this technique.

All I got to say to all of this is:

We should be able to Restore with out upgrading, like we just to be able to.

Apple should let you do it for a small fee like (Go to a apple store tell them you want to Restore w/o upgrade or DOWNGRADE who cares) for like 19.99?

I would pay to go back to 5.1.1 from 6.0 on my 4S why? DATA OVERAGE *****.

You can effectively restore without upgrading IF the phone is responding. That's the point of this thread, that using Settings->General->Reset on the phone is basically a restore without an upgrade.

If your phone is on a "Connect to iTunes" screen, then you don't have a choice, and I agree, that's not cool.

I followed the exact same steps mentioned by apple-id for unlocking my iphone 4, but i did not get the unlock message on itunes after 'reset - erase all contents and settings' step. Can anyone confirm if this works for iphone 4 unlock? I am using iTunes 10, IOS 5.1.1, ATT carrier.

I can confirm that it worked on two iPhones 4 I sold late last year. Ap2010, did you get an official unlock from AT&T? You have to request that they IMEI unlock the phone first, which they can only do if your account is in good standing and you've paid off a two year contract. The details of their requirements on your account before they unlock an iPhone can be found here. There is an online unlock request at this link, or you can call them if you're still an AT&T customer.

If you have done all of the above and the reset method still didn't work, I can think of one other thing. Did you have a SIM card in the iPhone while doing all of this? I recall that I did, and I think the unlock happens during an activation step, which requires some SIM be in the slot, even if not one with an associated, valid AT&T account.

If this method still doesn't work, it looks like you're getting iOS 6 on your iPhone if you want to complte the official carrier unlock process.

Yes I did get it unlocked by AT&T first via their online unlock webpage and got the confirmation email to that effect. Per the email instructions, I had to wait for 24 hours before I perform the backup and restore and I had complied with the wait time as well.

And to answer rajb245's question, I also did have an active AT&T SIM card (go phone SIM) inserted while trying out the activation.

The only other option I can think of is to try inserting a different carrier SIM to confirm if the phone has been unlocked (even though I did not get the congratulations message on itunes). Any other suggestions to validate if the device is unlocked?

At last i was able to unlock it after performing the 'reset - erase all contents and settings' thrice. I saw this in one of the other threads and it seems three is a charm indeed!

awesome tnx alot!

You could backup the data to your computer then hit the restore button on the iPhone, and it should restore without updating unless you can't unlock the device for whatever reason. (I have no idea the accuracy of my reply)