You probably have found yourself in a situation in which your iPhone seems to be inoperative (while the white Apple logo is displayed on a black boot screen). As a rule, users cannot understand how this could happen, and are wondering how to restore the iPhone. To understand the situation, try to trace your actions. Try to remember if you have installed any new applications recently. Did you hard reset your device when your iPhone freezes for some reason?
Of course, a reboot can help in this problem, however, try to avoid a hardware reset of the device, do it only after you are 100% sure that your phone is not responding. The following is a description of how to restore iPhone 3g and later.
Most users resort to such an option to solve the problem as iPhone recovery (booting the device in recovery mode), but sometimes it still fails to connect to iTunes. In order for the device to work correctly again, follow the step-by-step instructions on how to restore the iPhone.
1. Turn off the gadget. You may need to do a hard reset (hold the Home and Sleep buttons until the screen turns off).
2. Connect the USB cable to the iPhone and launch iTunes.
3. Now the hardest part of the process begins.
You should get your iPhone in DFU mode (update device firmware). For this:
a) hold down the Home and Sleep buttons for 10 seconds;
b) after 10 seconds release the Sleep button;
c) continue to hold the Home Button for another 10 seconds.
If you followed the steps above correctly, you will see a message in iTunes. If not, repeat the above steps - time is everything.
4. In the following steps, iTunes will restore the original firmware of your iPhone.
After the process is completed, the iPhone is restored, but it will boot already empty.
5. After the recovery process, the gadget restarts. If you are still connected to iTunes, you will be able to restore the contents of your iPhone from backup.
If you stop the backup process during the iPhone sync process, it will not be fully completed in subsequent attempts. You then cannot restore the contents from the backup if you did not complete the full backup for the first time after the restoration. For this reason, you can find user reviews who cannot understand why they were unable to restore the iPhone.
Remember that the backup process will not move at a steady pace in the last 5-10%. At this stage, the indicator will stand still for a long period of time (1-3 hours). Do not stop the recovery process. Everything is in order, it just takes a lot of time. On average, it will take 2.5 hours to fully complete this process. If you want to know how to restore your iPhone, expect a long time.
6. After the recovery process is complete, iTunes will start working faster and the iPhone will restart.
7. After that, you will need to sync the iPhone. If iTunes is configured to start automatic synchronization, you do not need to do anything.
As a rule, the guide on how to restore iPhone through DFU mode helps to fully return the device to functionality. However, deciding to resort to this process, remember that you should have enough time in reserve, since the whole procedure can take up to 3 hours.