Is there anyway to get into an iPhone 4 without a sim card?

My friend gave me her iPhone 4 and I restarted it. Now i'm stuck on the starting menu. I just want to use the iphone as an ipod but it won't continue without a sim card. I've tried with other sim cards and my mom's iphone's sim card but that still didn't work. Would jail breaking help?

When you said "restart" I think you meant restore, and yes there's a big difference. Simply restarting an iPhone would not get you in that state.

It needs the SIM to activate it. Which SIM depends on which carrier the phone is locked to.

You will probably need your friend's sim card to bypass the starting menu…