I have one rookie question with jailbreaking, but i'm confused.

[dsade]

Hello everyone. I've been helping others jailbreaking their i-products, but one day, i come up with one very simple, yet confusing question:

Is restoring your iphone necessary before jailbreaking?

Situation: iPhone 4 , iOS 5.0. not jailbroken. lots of photos, apps and messages in the phone. I don't want to restore it, however in some Hong Kong jb tutorial site, they stated restoring is compulsory.
However, i don't think it is. I dont see any other USA tutorial ask me to restore before jailbreaking.

Since i'm working with other's iphones, i dont want to screw it up.

Anyway, can i jailbreak iphone 4 with iOS 5.0 installed using redsn0w without restoring?

Thanks

(sorry for my amazing bad english, my profound apologies)

[iYeow]

Don't do any restore as apple is no longer signing 5.0. You do not need a restore, as you are not jailbroken, just jailbreak it with Redsn0w 0.9.9b7b or b8. You will not lose any of your contacts or photos.

[dsade]

awesome . Thanks you soooooooo much!

oh just discovered that iphone4 is 4.3.5, still, no restoring needed?

or should i upgrade to 5.0.1 and jailbreak with 5.0 ipsw?

[iYeow]

Untethereed jailbreak will be at 5.0 not 5.0.1 so don't update if you want untethered