This paper proposes a full-cycle unsaturated inductance estimation based initial rotor position estimation and sensorless starting scheme for switched reluctance motor. To calculate the full-cycle unsaturated inductance, the high frequency voltage pulses are injected in the non-exciting phases. Under medium or high load conditions, considering the electromagnetic saturation effects in the conduction regions of each phase, a simple polynomial transfer model is introduced to transfer the calculated saturated incremental inductance into the unsaturated phase inductance. Using the calculated three-phase full-cycle unsaturated inductance, the rotor position can be real-time estimated by the unsaturated inductance vector coordinate transformation method. The experimental results verify the validity of the proposed method.