PLEASE BACKUP YOUR iPhone BEFORE REMOVING iOS4! I lost everything on my phone prior to removing iOS4 and didn’t think about saying this originally.
In case you need help removing iOS4 from your iPhone 3G, here are the steps that I followed to downgrade my iPhone 3G to OS 3.1.3. Before we get going, I’m not taking credit for these instructions since this is a cleaned up version of this MacRumors forum post. Shout out to my buddy Tony Rodgers for sending me the original link.
Required Downloads
Before you get to the steps, be sure to download these two files first.
- iPhone1,2_3.1.3_7E18_Restore.ipsw ( this is the OS 3.1.3 restore file )
- blackra1n ( pick the installer that matches your OS )
Restore iPhone 3G to OS 3.1.3
- Connect your iPhone, open iTunes, then click your iPhone to go to the Summary screen.
- While holding down Alt ( OSX ) or Shift ( windows ), click the Restore button. If you held the correct key when clicking restore, you should get a File Open prompt.
- Select iPhone1,2_3.1.3_7E18_Restore.ipsw that you downloaded earlier and let iTunes do it’s work.
- After iTunes tries to verify the update, it should throw an error. This error is normal, so disregard even though iTunes has left your iPhone 3G in restore mode. Close iTunes.
- With your iPhone still connected, open blackra1n and click “Make it rain”.
- Manually power cycle your iPhone 3G if it doesn’t restart automatically for you.
That’s all there is to it. I know these steps work because it’s exactly what I did on my iPhone. The last part of the uninstall is pretty hairy since I wasn’t able to close iTunes without unplugging my phone. Also, when I ran blackra1n, my phone never rebooted on it’s own. The screen went black and I just unplugged the iPhone and forced a restart. When my iPhone booted up, I was back on 3.1.3.
I hope this helps somebody out because iOS4 on an iPhone 3G is horrible.
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It would be really nice if you included that we should back up all our files before doing this. I realize it is obvious if you think about it, but by the time I remembered I had already stopped the process. Worked great otherwise – thanks!
Hey Karl,
I’ll update the post. If it makes you feel any better, I lost everything from my iPhone going through this mess as well. I got lucky and Apple restored all my purchases for download, but I’m sure it’s a one time thing.
EF
Finally I am rid of iOS4. This is the only procedure I've found that actually worked for me. Thank you!!!
Alan,
I'm happy this helped you out. Thanks for stopping by!
Will this work for a 3gs? Thanks Christian
Worked Great… I recovered all data through Itunes… Hopefully I will love my phone again…
i downloaded the file and extracted it but now when i go to restore it i cant find fireware file…where might it be?
Worked perfectly. Thank you so much!!!!
Eric,
Eureka, I have my iPhone back. Thank you so much for your easy to follow directions.
They worked great and I didn't lose ANY data!
That's awesome Nadine! Glad to hear it's working for more people than not.
so how do i put verything back on my phone after its all been wiped off? Thank you for posting this info of deleting the terrible ios4, i just need all my contacts and apps back.
When I try to run blackra1n from my downloads it tells me "The program can't start because ASL.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." So I did that, and it gave me the same message. Then I noticed that a box popped up in spit of the error message, but when I clicked on "make it ra1n" it gave me the message "blackra1n.exe has stopped working" and gave me the option to check online for a solution or simply close the program… what do I do?? I'm in the middle of trying to restore my phone and really don't want to mess anything up (well… don't wanna make it worse than iOS4 did…)… HELP!!!
Eric, thanks for the directions. It didn't work for me (on a 3GS with a PC running Windows XP); there was a problem with the Black Rain file: "failed to start because ASL.dll was not found." I tried re-installing the application but that didn't work either. Heard of this problem for anyone else?
Hey Laura, I'm sorry to hear this, but haven't run into this myself. I'm starting to think this tip only works with VISTA and WIN7. I haven't run XP in years.
Laura – You may want to try the below solution.
http://techie-buzz.com/how-to/how-to-fix-missing-…
This worked perfectly for me – thanks for the tips.
iphone 3G will always be my best phone, it is fully packed with features and it is very easy to use _
It is not letting me restore from the back up because the 'OS is too old' and I have to update it to be able to restore my data.
Sorry to hear that Dane. Now that I'm on an iPhone4, I recently lost all my data moving to iOS 4.1. I'm updated, but still furious.
I followed the steps but can't seem to find the necessary ipsw files from the extracted files when prompted to do so after the doing the first step.
Is there a particular file which I need to click from which folder of the downloaded files?
Hasim,It's been so long I don't recall the path off the top of my head. I found this blog post discussing these files, hopefully this helps.http://osxdaily.com/2010/12/08/ipsw-file-location-mac-and-windows/EF
Cheers Eric – worked a treat!