I recently upgraded my iPhone 3G to firmware 2.1 and everything went fine until I restarted my iPhone, that’s when it reported that I needed to connect it to iTunes. When I did an iTunes error came up that said it could not read the SIM card. Which meant that my new iPhone 3G was a brick and I could only call 911. Oh joy!
I tried reinserting the SIM card to no avail. I even tried my older SIM card from my first generation iPhone I sold on Ebay, but that didn’t work either. I also tried the standard Power Off and Reset options, but I couldn’t get iTunes to see the SIM card or the iPhone 3G, which meant I couldn’t Restore it either.
After a friendly call to Apple I found out how to force iTunes to recognize an iPhone that needed to be Restored.
WARNING: This is a last resort! All the data on your iPhone will be erased and it will be reset to factory defaults. But you will get the option to restore to a previous backup, which is an order of magnitude faster since the 2.1 upgrade, THANK YOU APPLE.
- Turn off the iPhone (you can hold down the Sleep button, or use Sleep + Home, and release as soon as the screen shuts off).
- Open iTunes.
- Hold down the Home button while connecting the iPhone to your computer.
- iTunes will prompt you to perform a software restore.
- Your iPhone will be fully reset to it factory defaults but be sure and select to restore from your latest backup.
- Your good to go.
Hopefully this will help someone else who had problems with their SIM card after the 2.1 update or for anyone you wants to force the rest.
