Unable to activate my iPhone 3GS after upgrading from iOS 4.1 to 5

[Santaana2]

I bought this iPhone 2 weeks ago. The message icon was gone from the home screen. It had a lot of downloaded applications I have no use for. Could not access messages from the home screen unless I searched individual contacts. I therefore chose to reset the iPhone to the original factory settings. The device prompted me to upgrade to the latest iOS in order to reset. Following the upgrade, I could not activate the iPhone.

I got the following msgs : "Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable. Try connecting your iPhone to iTunes to activate it or try again a couple of minutes"

When connected to iTunes, the following message appears: "There is no SIM card installed in the iPhone you are attempting to activate. Please disconnect and insert a SIM card in the iPhone"

Please guide me step by step on how to solve this problem. Thank you.

 

[mwhartman]

Where did you purchase the phone? If it was used and already registered you may need to restore to factory settings and reactivate. What carrier are you trying to activate your service?