How To Upgrade To iOS 5.0.1, Preserve Baseband, Jailbreak and Unlock ~ Blog O'Nerd

A few days ago, Apple released its latest version of iOS - iOS 5.0. iOS 5 is highly anticipated version of iOS and most of jailbreakers and unlockers are eagerly waiting to try out the all new iOS 5 on their iDevices. If you are one of those who are dying to use iOS 5 without loosing your jailbreak and unlock, then here I will describe how to upgrade to iOS 5 while preserving baseband (so that you can unlock) jailbreak and unlock on Windows operating systems.

How To Preserve Baseband, Jailbreak and Unlock while upgrading to iOS 5 or iOS 5.0.1?

This tutorial is no longer applicable. If you want untethered jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1, please follow this tutorial instead of the one below.

Note : This tutorial is exactly the same for both iOS 5.0 and 5.0.1.

Note : Please note that this tutorial is not for newly released iPhone 4S or iPad 2. All other device are eligible to jailbreak and unlock (if you have unlockable baseband)

Note : Also note that the current jailbreak for iOS 5 is tethered. Meaning you need to connect your device to computer and run some utility like iBooty or redsn0w to boot your device with jailbreak. You need to do this each time your device need to reboot. Keep this in mind and only proceed further and upgrade to iOS 5 if you are okay with booting your device using your computer every time.

The untethered jailbreak is out now. If you have already upgraded to iOS 5.0.1 and having tethered jailbreak, install Corona from Cydia to make your jailbreak untethered. OR use redsn0w 0.9.10b1, click jailbreak, deselect "Install Cydia" and jailbreak. If you are on iOS 5.0 or lower, then upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 using this tutorial and jailbreak using redsn0w 0.9.10b1

Step 1
Downloading and preparing everything needed.

Download iOS 5.0 or 5.0.1 IPSW for your device. (Make sure you download iOS 5 IPSW correctly. If you make mistake and use other device's IPSW then you may run into lot of problems and upgrade you baseband, losing unlock possibly forever.)

Download iOS 5.0.1 IPSW Direct Links
iPhone 4 (GSM)
iPhone 4 (CDMA)
iPhone 3GS
iPad 1
iPod touch 3G
iPod touch 4G

Download and install iTunes latest version. Click here to download iTunes.

Download latest sn0wbreeze. Click here to download sn0wbreeze.

Step 2
Creating a Custom IPSW

Run sn0wbreeze.
Read the warning and click the blue-next button.

Now drag and drop the downloaded IPSW on sn0wbreeze OR browse to the IPSW and select it.
sn0wbreeze will identify the IPSW you provided.

Click Next.
On the next screen, select Expert Mode and click Next.

Now select the General button and click Next.

In the next screen, enter size of ROOT partition in MB. 1024 MB is still enough, but you can increase it for more ROOT space.
Check the check-box before "Hactivate" option if you don't have the official SIM for your device.

Now click next.
In the next screen you can add custom packages to include in the IPSW. No use of it for now. So click next.
Now select Build IPSW and click next.

sn0wbreeze will start creating custom IPSW, sit back and (try to) enjoy the process.

Once sn0wbreeze finishes creating custom IPSW, it can help you get into Pwned DFU mode so you can use the custom IPSW you just created. Click OK if you want to enter Pwned DFU right now, and follow the next step OR close sn0wbreeze if you plan to restore your device later.

Step 3
Entering Pwned DFU mode.

If you want to enter pwned DFU mode and use custom IPSW at a later time, you can follow this post then come back and skip to the Step 4 in this tutorial.
If you clicked OK on sn0wbreeze in Step 2, it will now start inbuilt iREB which will help you entering pwned DFU. So follow the onscreen steps.
Press and hold the Power button and Home button together for 10 seconds.
Now release the Power button but keep holding the Home button for at least 20 seconds.
If you followed these steps on time, properly, your device will now enter pwned DFU. The screen will be blank.

Step 4
Upgrading to iOS 5 or 5.0.1.

Now once you are in Pwned DFU mode, you can use custom IPSW and upgrade to iOS 5.0 or 5.0.1, to do so, follow the steps below.
Open iTunes.
It will tell you that your device is in recovery mode and needs to be restored. Click OK.
Now press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard and click the Restore button in iTunes.
Now release shift key and browse to your desktop where you will find the custom IPSW you created earlier. Select that IPSW and open it.
iTunes will confirm that this process will restore your device to iOS 5 or 5.0.1. Click OK.
Now iTunes will start restoring your device. It may take up to 10 minutes to restore.
It will reboot your device once restore is finished.

Note : If you get Error 2005 while upgrading to iOS 5.0, then you must upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 to get rid of this error.
Step 5
Activating device (if you didn't check the Hactivate option in step 2)

Now that your device is restored, you can activate it. To do so, insert the official SIM came with your device or any other SIM of the officially supported carrier and either join a Wi Fi network is available, and your device will be activated without connecting to iTunes, or if no Wi Fi network is available, then iTunes will activate your device. After activating, it will ask if you want to restore as a new device (you will lose previous data) or restore from the backup (you can have all your previous data back). If you want to continue using the official SIM, then select the option as you desire and click OK otherwise, if you want to unlock your device, then close iTunes.

Step 6.
Unlocking your device.

Please note that the ultrasn0w unlock can only unlock some particular basebands. So if you have a brand new device that came pre-installed with iOS 5 or greater, then you can not unlock your device at this moment. You must use Gevey Sim to unlock your device OR use the officially supported carrier.

If your device meets the following requirements, then you can unlock it.
iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, or iPhone 4 with baseband - 01.59.00 (in iPhone 4) 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01 or 05.13.04 (in iPhone 3G and 3GS). If you used iPad basbeand 06.15.00 in past, you can unlock too.

To unlock your iPhone, you need to use Cydia. But you can not open it because when your device rebooted after restoring to iOS 5, it rebooted without the jailbreak. As said earlier, the jailbreak is tethered, so you need to use iBooty to boot your device with jailbreak. So first lets learn how to use iBooty to boot in jailbreak state.

Step 6.1
Doing a tethered boot.

Open iBooty folder located on your desktop (it was created automatically at the time sn0wbreeze created custom IPSW) and run iBooty.exe.
Select your device from the drop-down located at bottom-right corner of iBooty and click Start.
It will now show you the commands to follow.
Press and hold the Power button and Home button together for 10 seconds.

Now release the Power button but keep holding the Home button for at least 10-15 seconds.

Now your device will be pwned to be able to boot with jailbreak and it will reboot.
Once you successfully boot, follow the next step to unlock your device.

Step 6.2

Open Cydia and let it do some first-run process. Now open Cydia again once it closes.
Select User when it asks you who are you.
Now Cydia will download and update the packages, so let it do so. Once packages are upgraded, it will ask you to upgrade components. Select Complete Upgrade and let it do the process of upgrading.
Once upgrade finishes, search for ultrasn0w, OR go to manage - sources and select repo666.ultrasn0w.com and install ultrasn0w.
The latest ultrasn0w version is version 1.2.5. The picture below is old.

Now reboot your device, but make sure you use iBooty to boot, so follow Step 6.1 again.

Once rebooted, your device is now successfully unlocked, having jailbreak and preserved baseband.

Note : Always remember to use iBooty to do a tethered boot otherwise your jailbreak apps including unlock will not work. So each time you need to reboot, you will have to follow Step 6.1. Once the untethered jailbreak is out, you will not have to do this. Wait for the untethered jailbreak to release. Once released, it will be posted about.