Sn0wBreeze 2.9.5 supports unteathered IOS 5.1 Jailbreak for iPhone 4 (GSM)

Sn0wBreeze has been updated to support an unteathered 5.1 (and 5.1.1) jailbreak on the GSM iPhone 4 and 3GS.  iPhone 4S users will need to use RedSn0w.

It also contains a fix for 3GS users using the 6.15.00 baseband having trouble with location services.  So, if you've switched to the iPad baseband and are encountering issues with your GPS, download Sn0wBreeze and watch the problem disappear :-)

'Patch' that unlocks baseband 4.11.08 is actually a virus

I came across this YouTube video showing an iPhone running baseband 4.11.08 being "unlocked".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJaxIiYKaa8&feature=related

The author claims that by running a patch to RedSn0w, it does a special jailbreak that automatically unlocks IOS 5.0.1 devices with 4.11.08 basebands.  No mention of UltraSn0w or Gevey Sim.

If this sounds too good to be true, it is.  Here's 3 reasons why

1. RedSn0w does not unlock phones, so patching it would be useless.  RedSn0w only jailbreaks.
2. The patch file does not change the size of modification times of the RedSn0w binary.   
3. The iPhone in the video is model MD128TU.  This particular model is not Sim-locked.

Not surprisingly, 'patch.exe' is a trojan horse and running it will infect your computer.

When I see a proven unlock of an locked iPhone 4 (i.e. model MC319LL) with a 4.11.08 baseband, I'll test it personally and post it here.

iPhone Stuck in a Restore Loop? Maybe it's your battery

This one was a real doozy.  So I was playing with a new iPhone 4 I got off eBay, seeing if I could downgrade the IOS from version 5.0.1 to 4.3.5.  Somewhere along the line, the phone went to restore mode and was completely stuck there, commonly known as a "restore loop".  I tried everything possible to get the software restored - loading both stock and custom IPSW files in iTunes, re-jailbreaking with redsn0w, but nothing worked.  iTunes would give errors 3194, 21, or -1.  RedSn0w would exploit with GreenPois0n and start the jailbreak process, but midway through, the phone would just reboot and I'd be back to the recovery screen.

It really looked like I had bricked it.  In desperation, I looked to a program called iRecovery, which is designed to get the phone out of recovery mode without doing a restore.  That didn't exactly match my problem, but figured it was worth a shot.  Getting iRecovery working in Windows 7 seemed impossible, so I just installed it on an old laptop running Windows XP.  Running iRecovery in shell mode, I see lots of error / warning messages, notably this:

gas gauge read timed out

Hmm.   Googling this error message indicated and issue with the battery.  I found a new battery for $7 off eBay, and sure enough, was then able to restore IOS and get the phone back up and running.

This was a good 3-4 days of frustration.  Would have nice if iTunes (or RedSn0w) indicated a battery or hardware issue, but both kept pointing towards software as the problem.  Anyway, thanks iRecovery - without you, I would have never figured this out.