Best way to restore for selling my phone?

[TylerC161]

I have an ihone 4 on 4.3.3 w/ modem 1.59.00 that is unlocked

I'm about to sell this phone, and I was wondering what would be the fastest way to return it to a freshly jailbroke/cleanly installed 4.3.3.

I did the "reset all settings" in the reset menu but then it kept making springboard go to safe mode. After removing DreamBoard and several other mobilesub add-on's its not crashing over and over now at least.

However, I want to be sure I get any of my personal information removed (including from the filesystem if necessary) before I sell it to someone else.

Should I just rebuild an ISPW and do the restore via itunes/tinyumbrella or can make it easier and just do it on the phone itself?

[Mailman487]

The only way I'm comfortable selling my phone while keeping the current firmware is to go to reset in the general settings and "erase all content and setting". Usually takes like 30 mins or so but keeps your phone clean and at its current firmware.

[TylerC161]

The only way I'm comfortable selling my phone while keeping the current firmware is to go to reset in the general settings and "erase all content and setting". Usually takes like 30 mins or so but keeps your phone clean and at its current firmware.

I'd say its been going almost an hour now. Lol. I've got it plugged in the PC USB so the battery wont die, but hopefully its actually still working on removing everything.

My pinwheel is still spinning. Do you think its locked up during the process or its possibly still working?

edit: the phone isnt as hot as i'd expect it to be after 2 hours of what i'd expect to be rigorous CPU work. Perhaps I should soft-reset and try to erase settings again?

[TylerC161]

It's been going over an hour now (again)

Has anyone else had issues completing the Erase all Content and Settings option?

[Broomhead]

I would have to say, resetting is not the best way to prep your iPhone for sale. Restore is the only way I would send my iPhone off to someone else... Restore, jailbreak & unlock. Is the best way

[Simon]

Using that reset option on a jailbroken phone is a big no no. Will leave you in boot loop. You need to figure out what SHSH you have first. Then go from there. You will want to use a custom firmware to preserve your baseband.

[TylerC161]

Using that reset option on a jailbroken phone is a big no no. Will leave you in boot loop. You need to figure out what SHSH you have first. Then go from there. You will want to use a custom firmware to preserve your baseband.

I thought perhaps that option would mess with the jailbreak. Since one thing I noticed too once I did the other reset was that my root password was back to default and not my custom one.

I'm familiar with preserving my baseband, Ive been doing it every upgrade in order to keep the 1.59 firmware to keep it unlockable. However, what I'm not so familiar with is the downgrading process with TinyUmbrella. I thought that you choose the shsh you have backed up to cydia or your pc, then you're allowed to shift-restore in itunes again back to factory. When I attempted this the other night though I got some 2xxx error. I've only tried it that once before I went to these alternative methods, but I'll attempt it again once I get home from work in a couple of hours.

One thing I'm unsure of though: Even though 4.3.3 is breakable with Jailbreakme.com, in my case since I want the baseband preserved I'll HAVE to use sn0wbreeze correct? ( I use Windows :/ )

[Simon]

You don't "have" to use snowbreeze. There is the tiny umbrella method of preserving baseband which gives you error 1013 and then you have to kick out of recovery with tiny umbrella. I just prefer to use custom firmware though. Gets you around that error 1013.

[TylerC161]

You don't "have" to use snowbreeze. There is the tiny umbrella method of preserving baseband which gives you error 1013 and then you have to kick out of recovery with tiny umbrella. I just prefer to use custom firmware though. Gets you around that error 1013.

Thanks for the tip. I'll be sure and check out the link in your sig for TinyUmbrella use once I get home shortly.

[TylerC161]

Using that reset option on a jailbroken phone is a big no no. Will leave you in boot loop. You need to figure out what SHSH you have first. Then go from there. You will want to use a custom firmware to preserve your baseband.

So I just got TinyUmbrella up and I noticed I dont have an SHSH for official 4.3.3. Which blows my mind since I must of restored about 4 different times (while it was current'ish) but either way, I cant go below 4.3.3 since it already sold with the description of being 4.3.3, and while I could go above to 5.0b's; there isnt an untethered version of those.

My option now is to erase the phone the best I can. I've already renamed it to "iPhone", took off syncing of everything (music, contacts, apps etc), deleted the easy stuff like pictures, mail accounts, etc, and signed out of App Store. Basically its clean - minus the deep filesystem. Things that come to mind are all the locations apple was tracking, or perhaps any 'cached' password data that may of been tied to any one of my apps. I doubt who this is sold to has the knowledge to extract my information, but better safe than sorry. What I'd like to know is: Does anyone have suggestions of folders I should go delete to absolutely erase the as many traces of my use as I can?

[iYeow]

You shouldn't mess with the files or folders in the root system which may put you into safe mode or frozen apple logo.

As long as you don't sell to Nigeria you should be fine

[TylerC161]

You shouldn't mess with the files or folders in the root system which may put you into safe mode or frozen apple logo.

What about if I use the Remote Wipe feature? Will that get it stuck in a boot loop too? I've literally got everything deleted from the surface. So unless this person it sold to seriously knows how to recover deleted files and geodata and whatnot - then there should be no problem. $5 says this person will end up restoring to 5.0 and mess up the unlock and baseband anyways, but I just want to be safe.

[iYeow]

If you want to help him and at the same time delete everything, build a custom firmware of ios 5from redsnow 0.9.9b5 for mac and restore to it, bb will be preserved and no jailbreak and best of all at iOS 5. . I know it works as I have restored my 3GS to iOS 5 but I haven't jailbroke it yet.

[TylerC161]

I just found to delete everything in Library -> Caches -> locationd. (Based off when the iPhone location tracking was in news).

Still Googling for iPhone forensics to reverse the process though. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[iYeow]

Seems like you are experienced person , not sure all those stuffs but caches in library can be deleted.

[raduga]

As long as you don't sell to Nigeria you should be fine

Unless you're selling it to battlecrushr,
in which case "not selling to Nigeria" won't do you any good!

[iYeow]

LMAO, most scams come from Nigeria

[TylerC161]

Seems like you are experienced person , not sure all those stuffs but caches in library can be deleted.

Thank you. I half consider myself to be, but it seems like I re-google every jailbreak just to be sure.

I even went as far to viewing the buying habit/history of the buyer. He/she's been a member since 2003, and bought under 20 things. All the auctions cached pages are gone so I dont know what the items were, but its not apparent its any type of iPhone data-miner or anything.

Anyways, I found iWipe that will write and re-write all the space. Since I've cleaned all I could, I took a suggestion from MacRumors and synced the phone full of videos, unsynced, then did the iWipe. I've deleted any and all .plist in stuff like var/mobile addressbook, calendar, maps, notes, safari, etc.

I've done all I can think of and all I can find from Google'ing the last 3 hours. I did notice alot of threads semi-regarding the same issue though, however some didnt apply to people whom dont have SHSH..

In case someone looks in this thread for help, here is what I found the last several hours:

Here is some folders I checked out files of mine for:

Notes Database:
        /private/var/mobile/Library/Notes
    SMS Database:
        /private/var/Mobile/Library/SMS
    Pictures and Video Recordings
        /private/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE
    Call History Database:
        /private/var/mobile/Library/CallHistory
    Voicemail Database:
        /private/var/mobile/Library/Voicemail
    YourTube Downloaded Video Folder:
        /private/var/mobile/Media/Downloads/YourTube

    AddressBook DB
        /private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.sqlitedb
    AddressBook Images DB
        /private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBookImages.sqlitedb
    Maptiles DB
        /private/var/mobile/Library/Caches/MapTiles/MapTiles.sqlitedb
    Calendar DB
        /private/var/mobile/Library/Calendar/Calendar.sqlitedb

removing auto-complete

Ill advise if my Iphone crashes in the next few days..........

1) Through SSH, copy AddressBook.sqlitedb file to PC
/private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook

2) With SQLite Database Browser, open AddressBook.sqlitedb

3) Switch to Browse Data tab and select ABRecent from Table dropdown list

4) Select the record to delete and press the Delete Record button at the top right

5) Continue deleting as much as you want and then Save

6) Transfer AddressBook.sqlitedb back to iPhone overwriting original
/private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook

7) Reboot iPhone

( sql viewer : SQLite Database Browser )



more personal folders: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1733604

Navigate to “/private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData
Delete the following files:
• com.apple.photos.caches_metadata.plist,
• Photos.sqlite,
• Photos.sqlite.aside,
• PhotosAux.sqlite
• PhotosAux.sqlite.aside

If any files exsist in the following directories, delete them:
• /private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/100APPLE
• /private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Thumbnails
• /private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Videos