So my brother gave me last weekend his Blackberry Curve 8310 for me to unlock and now I want to share with you how you can do that yourself.
Here we go:
Step 1: - Download from BlackBerry's official website the Blackberry desktop manager. Whatever the latest version for that is
Step 2: - Download the firmware for your version of Blackberry - again their website would be the source for that. You would need to have at least 350MB available on your drive to install those things after you download them.
Step 3: - Download MFI Multiloader - http://www.mediafire.com/?y2vmtmjhjmj this is the original program without all the hack tools added to it. I found that installing this and later the additional files would work better for you. The original program is 5.3MB - later you will add another 817MB to it.
Step 4: - Download the MML for the MFI Multiloader - http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/130277233/BlackBerry+MML?tab=summary - this is one of the places you can download that from. It will un-rar into a C_ folder. whatever is in it you just copy paste into the folder created by the original MFI Multiloader - should be in C:\MML
Don't worry about overriding files - just do it.
Step 5. Install the Blackberry desktop manager and after that the firmware for your phone. once you do that open the Blackberry manager - Don't install any updates. it would be best if you unplug your internet connection cable. When you install the firmware it will ask you for your provider - all this does is to upload to your phone a start up image for that particular company. So whatever you pick is fine - i chose 02, since that is where the Blackberry was purchased originally from.
Step 6. If you need to preserve whatever data you have on the phone - do a back up.
Step 7. Close all programs related to the Blackberry. Open the MFI Multiloader. If it hasn't created a desktop link just go to C:\MML and lunch the application. It will state that it is waiting for a phone to be plugged in. Once you do that it will either automatically start doing its magic or it will prompt you to do so.
Wait until it finishes - should be 2-3min tops. This will wipe your phone. Once done it will start counting seconds until disconnect and the phone will display the number 1.
Unplug the phone. (If you look at your blackberry it will have a white screen with a bunch of options on it or it will go straight to saying error 507. If its not showing error 507 you may be prompted to type on the phone START in order to get to the next part. Error 507 means that your phone only has factory OS.)Step 8. Now close the MFI Multiloader - otherwise it will perform another wipe of the phone. Open Blackberry Desktop Manager. You will notice that at the bottom left corner where it used to show your phone's ID, now it shows that there is none. The software will also state that it can't find any phone. Don't worry about that.
Step9. I found out that at least for me under XP SP3 this next step doesn't work, but under Vista it works just fine. Click on the Application Loader and than click on Software Update. It will state - select USB and Password (on XP it didn't give me the password field at all) just select from the drop down for the USB and don't type in any password (even if you type something it won't do anything). It will than prompt you to choose which software you want to install - you pick the firmware for your phone that you installed previously. It should start installing that on the phone - in my case I had to do this a few times until the phone decided to upload the OS from my PC. if it doesn't work for you the first time, just unplug the phone and than plug it back again. Whole process would take 20-30min. so be prepared. At one point it will look as if the installation has frozen, but under no circumstances are you to disconnect.
Step 10. If everything went fine with the installation your phone will start booting - will take couple of minutes usually. After that your phone will be unlocked for use wherever you want. Open the Blackberry desktop manager. This time you will see your phone ID again at the bottom left corner. If you want you can download applications and games from the i-net and install those on the phone through the Manager. Be aware that every time you install something it will reboot the phone. Any applications that are .jab or .jar - you will have to install through the phone itself. Just use the installed web browser and go to the desired page. After that just click on the application you want to install. If you go crazy on the games, be aware that most of those would play really bad on the phone - you will need to rotate your screen to play them, there are no instructions what buttons to use, and most often that run reeeeeallly slow on the phone.
Step 11. After you used the above described method all but one thing will work fine for you. If you try to upload music, pics etc on the phone using the application in the Desktop manager it will tell you that your phone won't sync. Well that's because the hack messes up your mass storage card. So what you will need to do is download the following app. Run it and it should fix the phone after it reboots.
BB storage Activation - (it will ask you to register in order to download).
well... thats all folks... if you run into any issues, you may want to check this forum for a few screenshots and what others before you have found as problems during the unlock process - http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=653921
The other unlock option is to get an IMEI code calculator for Blackberries - if you can find on it will save you all the above things and will unlock your phone in 30 sec. That is what all those pay websites use in order to provide you the unlock code.
