I have a iPhone 3GS with no SIM card. I had attempted to wipe the phone of all my data by going into the phoe's General Settings and erasing all my data. I think it was done but cannot be sure.
Is there any way I can reset the phone to factory settings (wiping it clean) through iTunes without its SIM card?
iPhone 3GS
Yes you can do this from the phone itself you just have to turn on your wifi and connect to the internet. The open Settings > General > reset (at the bottom) >Erase all content and Settings. It will ask you to verify this choice a couple times then you have to sign in to your apple account. You will know for sure that it has been wiped when that original screen comes up that was there when you first opened the phone ("Hello" "Hola" "Ciao ....).
Hope this helps 😀
Did you also check these articles?
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Learn how to set up your old iPhone to be like an iPod touch (without a carrier plan).
If the device is still locked to a provider, any other SIM from that provider can be used.
Sorry but this is way out of my league.
I can't reset to factory settings through iTunes without its SIM card.
The phone is not worth much. Perhaps a hammer will solve the problem. Pity though, the phone could help someone as I no longer need or want it. Tragic...........
Thanks for trying to help me. Appreciated.
There should be no problems other than the inconvenience of having to restore your iPhone to factory settings.
Except for one factor - contacts, calendar, notes, photos in the camera roll. You need to copy all of these to your computer or you will lose them. The easiest way is to sync these with apps on your computer such as MS Outlook or iCal and Address Book on a Mac. Photos are copied the same way you would with any digital camera.
The alternative is a 3rd party app that can copy files from an iPhone to your computer. iOS Data Recovery software is probably the best. It is not free, but has gotten positive reviews.
NOTE: I have no connection with the developers, and don't even own it.
Read more here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
for me, this was just now the top google search result for "reinstall iphone without sim" so having accurate information on this page is still important
Thank you. I will try to find the SIM for this phone. It will take a bit of searching as I removed it when my contract with the provider ended. Nevertheless your help is much appreciated. Thank you again.
Yes you are right ,it was misleading yet when I post an true experience with my iPhone the Carrier blocking and locking my WiFi I was warned by Apple that I could be banned from this site. in Japan we can not use our iPhone as an iPod after contract the carrier SoftBank JP provisioned my iPhone Network so I could not use WiFi for 4 years,they broke it too.
sheffi wrote:
Yes you are right ,it was misleading yet when I post an true experience with my iPhone the Carrier blocking and locking my WiFi I was warned by Apple that I could be banned from this site. in Japan we can not use our iPhone as an iPod after contract the carrier SoftBank JP provisioned my iPhone Network so I could not use WiFi for 4 years,they broke it too.
Your post has nothing to do with this issue of the thread. Also, why are you posting on a thread that is almost nine months old? You're bumping a thread for no good reason.
You cannot activate an iPhone without a sim. The sim does not have to be
associated with an active cellular account; however, if the iPhone is locked to a
particular wireless provider, the sim must be from that wireless provider.
Borrow an appropriate sim from a friend/relative/co-worker for the few minutes
it will take to activate the iPhone. You will need a sim whenever you restore
the iPhone or update the iOS version.
I have an iphone 4 that I got on a contract with AT&T (locked). The contract is now over. I have submitted unlock request with AT&T which has been accepted. When I tried to factory reset the iphone (without the simcard in phone), it got stuck in recovery mode. How can I now restore the iphone from recovery mode? I don't mind losing the data. I have the original AT&T simcard that came with it but that account is no longer active. Do I restore the iphone first and then unlock it or unlock first and then restore it?
Any help/advice is appreciated. Thanks.
i have sim locked iphone 5s and from setting menu i erase all the data and when it restarted then it is asking to insert valid supported sim to activate my phone so what shall i do to activate my phone without sim like before......can someone help me plzz...
You need a SIM in the phone to activate it, even if you don't plan to use it for phone calls. And you can remove the SIM once the phone is activated. The SIM does not have to be currently enabled. So just borrow one for a few minutes.
Yes!
Thanks but can you tell me how to do it?
Try to set it up as new device, explained here:
How to back up your data and set up as a new device
You might have to use recovery mode if iTunes does not recognize the phone if plugged in:
iOS: Unable to update or restore
reset iPhone to factory settings without SIM card
