If you need to restore your iPhone but cannot afford to lose your jailbreak (especially since iOS 8.1.3 cannot be jailbroken), here is how to restore your iPhone without losing your iOS 8.1.2 jailbreak.
Whether you want to start from a clean slate, sell your jailbroken iPhone, or just screwed something up on the software side, you’ll want to completely restore the device. However, restoring your iPhone via iTunes will force you to update to iOS 8.1.3, and since this latest update is not yet jailbreakable, you’ll want to stick with iOS 8.1.2.
Fortunately, there is a way to restore your iPhone while keeping your iOS 8.1.2 jailbreak intact.
“Why don’t you just go in and choose?” You may be asking. This is a valid question, but doing this on a jailbroken iPhone or iPad will cause a boot loop where you have to do a hard reboot to get back to the lock screen, and you’ll be back where you started. Using special software is the only way to factory reset your iPhone while keeping the jailbreak intact.
Half Restore and iLEX Rat They are two of the best options when it comes to wiping your iPhone without breaking the jailbreak and I will show you how to use these apps to restore your iPhone in minutes without breaking the jailbreak.
Half Restore vs iLEX RAT
Both of these apps eventually achieve the same thing, but each uses different methods that users may prefer over the other.
With iLEX RAT, you just need to download the app from Cydia and run the Restore feature on your iPhone using the app. You don’t need to plug the device into anything, it’s a really nice convenience.
The plus for Semi-Restore is that you don’t need to download anything to your iPhone, instead you download the Semi-Restore app to your computer. From there, you connect your iPhone to your computer and run the software to restore your iPhone while keeping the jailbreak.
Here’s how to use each piece of software.
How to Use Half Restore
With SemiRestore there is nothing you need to install on your iPhone. all you have to do Download Half Restore plug it into your computer and run it with your iPhone plugged in. As of this writing, Semi-Restore really only works on Windows and Linux machines. You can run it on OS X, but you’ll need to download the Linux version and create a working Live USB version more than necessary if you have a Windows machine nearby.
You’ll also want to make sure you have OpenSSH installed on your iPhone, which can be downloaded via Cydia.
After the Semi-Restore program is downloaded, extract the .ZIP folder and you will see there are two files. One is a .DLL file and the other is an .EXE file. Double-click the .EXE file to open the program. Make sure your iPhone is plugged in, and then click .
Let the program do its thing and your iPhone will eventually reboot and restore. You will then see the iOS Setup Assistant appear to indicate that the device has been officially restored to factory settings while keeping the jailbreak intact.
How to Use iLEX RAT
Follow the simple instructions below to use iLEX RAT to restore your iPhone to factory settings while keeping the jailbreak.
What you will want to do first is to install iLEX RAT from Cydia. To do this, you need to add a repo first if you don’t have one yet. Open Cydia and tap on it. resources Tap the tab, then tap in the upper right corner. Now tap in the upper left corner and type the following URL in the text box: . Tap on it to officially add it to your repo list.
Now search Cydia and several options should open up. Just make sure you select the one that writes. Once installed, open the app and tap on it to begin the restore process. A warning window will pop up informing you that you will lose all your data and settings. If that’s okay, just tap to start the process.
Your iPhone will reboot and eventually you will be taken to the iOS Setup Assistant. Perform this action to go to the home screen and make sure you see the Cydia icon on the home screen. Sometimes, iLEX RAT hides the icon for some reason, but it still loads (and it’s still accessible by going to Safari and typing in the address bar). If this is happening to you, using SemiRestore will usually fix it. Otherwise, you can try to restore again using iLEX RAT.
