IMEI corrupted cant activate iPhone 5s

[jaggunothing]

My friend dropped his iPhone and it lost the cell signal and was showing "searching" at the info bar. He went ahead and restored it thinking that would sort the issue, iTunes was showing (-1) and (-50) error, but after multiple tries completed the process.

Now the issue is phone is stuck in welcome screen and now way to activate it. Tried with XAMPP tool with iTunes and it detects the phone, but gives an error saying it "could not complete activation because activation information was invalid". Quite sure it might be a hardware level issue and unfortunately don't have any access to people who can repair at hardware level.

Is there anyway to complete activation and use the device atleast as an iPod touch? Please help if some work around is available.

 

[bilibug]

Did you try to reseat the sim card? It may have been dislodged when he dropped the phone.

 

[jaggunothing]

Did you try to reseat the sim card? It may have been dislodged when he dropped the phone.

Yes all such small checks were done, even the local apple service shop checked and returned it saying it can't be repaired, since they don't have chip level capabilities.

 

[bilibug]

Really odd that a physical drop could cause that type of damage to a solid state device. Sorry.