iPhone 3GS Jailbreaking and Activation

My experience in iPhone unlocking : can be very troublesome for the inexperienced

My problem

I obtained and iPhone 3GS which I decided to upgrade to 6.1.3. Bad idea because after restart the iPhone started activating though wifi and eventually failed. I normally thought that the device required the famous jail-breaking which I proceeded to investigate. I found the program redsnow for this task. You can find it everywhere. It failed me numerous times. 

Here are some problems and solutions

1. Entering DFU(driver firmware update) mode - just follow the timing to the second precision. no errors allowed here. You will sometimes enter recovery mode. This is because you didn't follow the timing right.Exiting DFU or recovery mode - just press the home and power button for approximately 15 seconds, it should switch on again

1. IPSW - sometimes you have to get the correct IPSW for the ISO version you are using or redsnow will tell it doesnt have the required keys. You'll find the link to downlood at the end.

1. Stuck on "waiting for reboot" - you need to use rednow in administrator and compatibility mode for windows sp2 for some reason

After completing the jailbreak it told me to use the "just boot" option every time to start the iPhone.  Seemed weird but finally this too didn't work so I continued my research.

Unlocking(Baseband fixing)

Finally I found advice that just the baseband needed installing actually downgrading. This is because the new installed firmware doesnt work right or something. In the jailbreak option I had the option to "install iPad baseband" but the latter taking too much time I started investigating a solution. I found that it is actually trying to download a 500mb file from apple servers. Given my slow connection I looked for a way to download the files myself and redirect redsnow to the local files. this can be done in a rather lengthy way by installing the apple server program to host the files and change the system32/driver/etc file so as to redirect redsnow to my own server, now testing this option.

I found one pretty good comment from Jheremy explaning the need for jaibreaking and unlocking the baseband:

Hi there…to make it simple,jailbreaking an Iphone is basically allowing users to access third-party softwares and applications that you can’t install on an official Apple firmware.This is due to Apple’s limitations and policies. Unlocking is basically freeing your Iphone from an specific carrier (AT&T or T-Mobile) and unlocking your Iphone means that you can use it to any carrier.Baseband is a software that drives your Iphone signal,including GSM,EDGE and Wifi connections.That’s it.

Installing Cydia

Cydia wasn't appearing on the iPhone even after jailbreak and downgrading the base-band   jailbreaking with the option "Install cydia" checked or unchecked made no difference. i found the solution by trial and error. when selecting the 6.0 IPSW file for jailbreak, it always asked me if my iPhone 3gs had a new boot rom and i always selected "Yes" since I always saw "new br" in the info text when I connect the device. Selecting "No" solved the problem. i now have cydia and can install custom apps. The only problem still is the fact that the firmware installed is 6.1.3 and if I want to be able to run Cydia or Safari, I have to boot it from the the "Just Boot" option from RedSnow.

Also you need to jailbreak the device before unlocking it

Download firmwares : http://www.icj.me/ios