How I beat the network SIM lock on my phone... for free

[Bonce34]

I thought I'd share my experience of this in case anybody else found themselves in a similar situation whilst doing Over The Air ROM updates.

So I got home from the pub last night and decided it was the right time to update my phone to Android 2.2 (hey, I'd had five pints, anything and everything sounded like a "good idea"!).

For background you should know that I spent last weekend making a gold card and flashing my Orange branded Desire to the v1.15xxx generic ROM to get rid of all the Orange crap. I did not root or unlock.

So... I checked for updates, and instead of being offered 2.2 Froyo, I was offered 1.21xxx. Curses! I know from reading on here that v1.21 breaks the wifi. However, reading through the official Froyo thread in this forum I found a post by somebody in a similar situation suggesting that by upgrading to 1.21 and then checking for updates he was able to install 2.2. That was good enough for me (yes, five pints) so, with my gold card inserted, I accepted the update to 1.21 and left it to do its thing. Eventually it finished, but when it booted for the last time it said the SIM was network locked and I had to contact my operator.

ARRGH!

OK, I thought, let's just fork out for a SIM unlock code, get this fixed and go to bed (it was now 2am). It didn't look like I had much choice anyway. However, before I clicked the final order confirmation button in Paypal I decided to try one more thing. I took my SIM out, booted the handset and then checked for updates. Fortunately my wifi still seemed to work because it offered me the 90Mb Android 2.2 download, which I accepted and installed. When it finished I took my goldcard out, put my normal SD card and my SIM back in, booted it up, and ta-daaaa! A nice fresh Froyo working installation and no network lock on my SIM any more. I don't know why it worked, but it did and it saved me twenty quid.

So the moral of the story? Drink more!

 

[FelixofMars]

Congrats, and no Orange Cr-apps well done.

 

[Scoobydoo81]

Could you post a link to where i could get a generic version of the 1.15 firmware?

Thanks

 

[Bonce34]

http://androidfiledepot.com/Storage...io_32.30.00.28U_4.05.00.11_release_121865.exe

 

[GSMGuy]

Brilliant - Worked for me after I SIM locked a handset last night!!!

Froyo and no lock probs!!

Cheers

Mike

 

[ThEGr33k]

I think I love you. That is all!!!!!!!!!

 

[Haste75]

Ha, allthough the story was of no use to me i enjoyed the read, so thankyou

 

[d.knight99]

Damn, blast and many other assorted expletives!!!

I did exactly the same thing as you, but like you it was late at night and I panicked so bought an unlock code. Why didn't I think of doing it that way?? Grrrr

 

[onlyconnect]

A nice fresh Froyo working installation and no network lock on my SIM any more. I don't know why it worked, but it did and it saved me twenty quid.

Thanks for this post. I followed the steps with an Orange-locked Desire just purchased from eBay and it worked as described. Since I am using it on Orange anyway, and mainly wanted to get to 2.2 and remove the Orange branding, it is all I need for now. I did notice though that it is not fully unlocked - I tried a Voda sim and it came up with the network lock message.

Tim

 

[ThEGr33k]

Thanks for this post. I followed the steps with an Orange-locked Desire just purchased from eBay and it worked as described. Since I am using it on Orange anyway, and mainly wanted to get to 2.2 and remove the Orange branding, it is all I need for now. I did notice though that it is not fully unlocked - I tried a Voda sim and it came up with the network lock message.

Tim

Ah, I was wondering about this. Cheers.