Restoring Your Jailbroken iPhone

Posted on Dec 30, 2010

If you have the same basic configuration as I do, these are the steps that you’ll follow to restore your iPhone. Here are your requirements that are important:

• iPhone 4 with iOS4
• Jailbreak using Limera1n
• Have your iPhone backed up using PkgBackup app from Cydia (the paid version, backed up through dropbox)
• Use infinifolders (not necessary to use this tutorial, but if you do have it, you MUST follow these steps.)

I’m assuming that you’ve already done a firmware flash and jailbreak before, since you are restoring and have the files that you need and are familiar with the steps. This is just a nice reminder of the exact steps you need to follow.

Restore Your Firmware

1. Turn off your phone
2. Hold down the home button and connect your phone to the computer
3. When iTunes opens and tells you to restore, hit OK.
4. In Windows, hold down the Shift key and click on the Restore button in iTunes.
5. You will be given the option of the Firmware files you have on your computer. You should see your 4.1 file there. Select it and continue.
6. You will get an error. Click through it.
7. Close iTunes.
8. Open Umbrella, select your recovery phone, and exit recovery
9. Leave your phone connected to the computer

Restore your Data from iTunes

1. When your phone reboots, select your backup file in iTunes. You should make sure you’re aware of how to [cref make-multiple-backups-in-itunes].
2. Sync your apps, music, and such.
3. Click on the limera1n.exe file you should keep stored somewhere handy (like your jailbreak folder on your desktop or something). Run Limera to jailbreak your phone.
4. Open Limera on your phone and install Cydia.
5. Run Cydia on your phone and do the updates. Reboot, of course.
6. Download the following software, if you had it on your phone. PkgBackup won’t install it for you. The most important of these are the infinifolders and the Five Icon Dock. This affects the appearance of your icons when you do your PkgBackup Restore.
   1. PkgBackup
   2. ActionMenu
   3. Five Icon Dock
   4. Five Icon Switcher
   5. Infinifolders
   6. MxBackup
   7. No Icon Shadow
   8. biteSMS
7. Make sure you reboot.

Run PkgBackup

Version 2.4.5 was just released and I’m seeing some problems. If you’re reading this article later, they may be fixed. First, try to run it and see if everything works.

1. Open PkgBackup and select Restore from the bottom of the app.
2. At the top, you will see the number of uninstalled apps. To the right of that is a button that allows you to select from multiple package backups if you have them. Select the one you want.
3. Select the programs you want to restore
4. Go down all of the options and select what you want to restore.
   1. I’ve been having trouble with the Default Apps causing the backup to freeze at the end. I had to disable all of these.
5. Hit the Restore Button

Troubleshooting:

1. If there is a Dropbox error, the PkgBackup Changelog says to do the following:
   1. Remove PKGBackup folder from your Dropbox™ account – Using SSH, connect to your device & remove file: com.pragmatixconsulting.packagebackup.plist
2. Here’s how I did that.
   1. I’m assuming you’ve changed your SSH Root Password from alpine so that every hacker can’t access the root of your phone. If you haven’t, shame on you, and do that NOW.
      1. Go to Cydia and search for MobileTerminal.
         
      2. There are 3 options today. Make sure you get the one for iOS4
      3. Install it, then open it.
         
      4. Type su root and hit return
      5. type alpine and hit return
      6. type passwd and hit return
      7. type your new password and hit return
      8. type your new password and hit return
      9. Close the application and reboot
   2. Connect to your phone via SSH:
      1. Your phone must be in WiFi. Make sure you’re on a computer attached to the same network as your phone. On your phone, go to Settings > Wifi and locate the wireless network you are on. Click on the arrow next to that network.
         
      2. You will see your IP Address. Make a note of it.
         
      3. I use Firefox. It’s free and it’s awesome. Just saying. In Firefox, go to Tools > Add-Ons and add FireFTP if you don’t have it already.
      4. Once installed, click on Tools > FireFTP. A new tab will open.
      5. On the left, go to the drop-down box and create a new account.
         
      6. In the Account Manager, name your connection, enter the IP Address you wrote down, and the password you entered into your phone in step 1 above. Do NOT hit Ok yet.
         
      7. Go to the Connection Tab and change Security to SFTP. Hit Ok.
         
      8. Back in the main Window, Hit connect.
         
      9. In the right panel, navigate to folder /var/root/Library/Preferences and remove the file: com.pragmatixconsulting.packagebackup.plist by hitting the delete button.
      10. Reboot the phone.