[Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bigbull_009:
thx for all your support. its working now

Hello

i have rooted my phone because i need to use a different sim. Because i was with 3 it wont let me to use a different sim even after rooting and unlocking it.

The only way if u want to use a different sim is to flash a unbranded official uk firmware on it.Because even if u unlocked the phone after rooting all the bloat ware and the fiemware from 3 wont let u use any other sim (i mean in my case.) but make sure u have already backed up the current firmware before flashing a new firmware.

Please use method only if u bold enough to do it. because if u done anything wrong it may void the warranty.Please do all this in your own risk, to overcome this use a jig u can buy from ebay. or goole it or there is lots of information about this in you tube to reset the flash counter

I will explain what i did to my phone

Step1, Rooted my phone using the method described in android authority and firmware xwlp7 which is described on the above site. here is the link for it please copy and paste on your browser then u will see the method how to do it.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...xMSnBw&usg=AFQjCNEAJtIUKzYLRTUMggMwJWe2V-SseA

Step 2,Once u have rooted Get the sim unlock apps from Google play, in my case the Chain fires one didn't work, use this app only once, if u use it more than once u r phone may get locked. Then i have tried Helroz's Galaxy_S Unlock and it did worked.You can check this by typing *#7465625# in u r dial pad once the app run and if u r phone is unlocked it will say sim lock 'OFF'.

But at this stage my phone wasn't working with my other orange sim . The reason was the phone was still on 3 uk firmware that's why the phone wont let me to use any other sim. So i need to find a unbranded original firm ware close to XWLP7 which was my original firmware because i don't really want to try any other firm ware.

So i have found that carphone warehouse uk was using XWLP7 firmware in their sgs2 which is same as mine. Because phones from carphone ware house can use any sim i thought this may work with any sim on my phone as well, You can get this from SAMWARE site where u can find all the firmwares for sgs2, new and old. This site is free and only need a registration. Down load it and extract it in to a folder(tar file). Once you are in the site look for the carphone ware house uk's firmware. I hope you are in Ice cream sandwich 4.0.3

Step 3, Before flashing this do a back up of your current firmware just in case if anything goes wrong , u can flash back. U can do that in recovery mode, (Turn your phone off, turn it back on again by pressing volup+home+power) U have options there to back up, once you done the back up of original firmware in the reoverymode

Step 4, Do a factory wipe/ reset

Step 5, Do a cache wipe as well on the recovery mode this will help u to do a fresh start.

Step 6, Tun the phone off again and turn it on back on down load mode( vol down+home+power button)

Step 7, Start odin which you have used to root the phone in step 1 then connect the phone using the usb cable and odin will recognise your phone (yellow colour on the left hand corner of the odin page) Once this is seen on the pda choose the firmware you have downloaded ( carphone ware house oen from SAMWARE) And make sure only reboot and F.reset time and pda are checked,make sure nothig else checked in the odin. Then let it run, this will take few mins and the phone will reboot.

Hope fully this time u don't see any 3 welcome screen, turn it off and try using the 3 sim first, it should work then try any other sim, in my case that was orange it did worked fine including mobile data so you don't have to change the APN settings for each network provider.

Thanks for the xda develpers, android authority and samware for all their hard work in providing lots of information.

Any doubt let me know. Please do not do anything unless you are really comfortable with

Thx