With the Spirit Jailbreak for all iDevices almost apon us, the is one very important procedure that we must do in order restore your devices back to a previous firmware.   Backing up your SHSH will allow you to restore your device back to the firmware you are on currently so that you can jailbreak with Spirit again in the future.  Basically this is a safeguard against an accidental firmware upgrade.  On newer devices like the 3Gs and the iPad Apple requires that your firmware be signed by their servers in order to restore your device. 

Lets say you have a nice new iPhone 3Gs and you successfully jailbreak your device using the Spirt jailbreak (when its released I mean).  Everything is going fine, but in a few months Apple releases iPhone OS 4.0, and you decide to upgrade your iPhone.  You then realize that you have just lost your jailbreak.  Now what?  Let’s say there is no jailbreak for this current firmware, what do you do now?  Well maybe you decide to downgrade back to 3.1.3 so you can regain jailbreak status.  But all of a sudden you get a error in iTunes, that basically says your firmware isn’t signed or you cannot downgrade.  Well this is why you MUST backup your ECID SHSH. 

Once again, newer iDevices need to have their firmwares signed by Apple and when Apple releases a new firmware they stop signing the old one for activation.  And when I mean newer iDevices, it only applies to iPhone 3Gs, 3rd generation iPod Touch, and the both iPads.  They all require firmware signing at this time.  .

How do you backup your ECID SHSH?  There are a few answers and a few methods, but the best method I have found is the Auto-SHSH Grabber by iH8sn0w. Remember this is only for the Ipad and iPhone 3Gs. 

NOTE:  This is only for Windows

•  Simply goto the iH8sn0w’s site, and look at the very top of the page for the AutoSHSH – 3.1.3/3.2 [RC2] link. 
• Click it and it will bring you to a Mediafire page. 
• Download the .EXE
• Once you open it, the app will ask you if you have Java installed, if you don’t, click NO and it will automatically bring you to the Java download. 
• Install Java
• Once its done you will see this:
• Enter into Recovery Mode, for the iPad: Turn iPad off, then hold down the HOME button and at the same time plug the USB cable into your iPad (other end must be connected to your Windows PC) and continue to hold the HOME button.  You will then see the Recovery logo appear
• Now simply click on the big button
• It will ask you to name and save the SHSH file locally on your PC first.  Find a safe place and save file
• The rest is done by the program, it will upload your SHSH blob to Cydia’s server also for safe keeping

That is it your ECID SHSH is backed up and saved, now you can safely jailbreak your iPad or iPhone 3Gs