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Save Your iPhone By Restoring It With Recovery Mode

Submitted by Michael Johnston on August 17, 2007 - 6:25pm.
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Is your iPhone acting up? Yes it's true, iPhones have problems too. But what can you do when it's REALLY messed up? If iTunes doesn't see your iPhone's cry for help, you may need to invoke recovery mode. Although it's an extremely helpful mode, how to get there isn't very apparent. Read on for the how-to!

As arcane as "recovery mode" sounds, it's actually very simple:

Disconnect your iPhone and turn it off by holding the "Sleep/Wake" button for about five seconds and then sliding the red slider. If your iPhone is already off, there's no need to turn it on and then off again. Once it's off, press and hold the "Home" button and plug your iPhone into a Mac or PC with iTunes installed. Keep holding the "Home" button until you see a dock cable pointing to the iTunes icon. iPhones running older software will display a yellow triangle and text which says "Please Connect to iTunes". Once you see this image, you can release the Home button.

iPhone in Recovery Mode

Open iTunes (if it's not already open) and you will be told that "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode." Click "OK" and you will be taken to the iPhone pane. Click "Restore" and you're done, it's that easy! Depending on the extent of your iPhone's ills, it may take some time to do a full restore. Once you're done, you should again have a perfectly working iPhone.

If this doesn't solve your problem, you may need to restore using DFU (Direct Firmware Upgrade) mode. To enter this mode, plug in your iPhone and turn it off. Hold down the "Home" and "Sleep/Wake" buttons for about twelve seconds. You'll briefly see the silver Apple logo and then your phone will appear to turn back off. Release the "Sleep/Wake" button but continue to hold the "Home" button until you see a message in iTunes stating that it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. Choose "Restore" and you should be fixed right up!

If this doesn't fix your problem, your iPhone may require a visit to the Genius Bar. You can find a local Apple Store and schedule an appointment at apple.com/retail.

Submitted by uiop on August 17, 2007 - 7:01pm.
Thanks for that tidbit...hopefully we won't have to use it. I guess you use that when your iPhone is REALLY screwed up. :eek:

Submitted by Jordan Hoffmann on August 17, 2007 - 9:50pm.
Thanks, That is a really good tip. Though I hope I do not ever need to use it, it is nice to know what I have available.

Old retired lady

Submitted by Unregistered (not verified) on August 23, 2007 - 3:31pm.
This happened to me last night. I was downloading v.1.0.2. The download stopped half-way, I got an error message, and the "Connect to iTunes" screen with the yellow triangle appeared on my phone.

Also, in iTunes the serial number, other iPhone info, and the usage meter at the bottom all blanked out.

I fussed and fumed and blindly poked around, turning things on and off, plugging and unplugging, starting and re-starting.

I must have accidentally stumbled on the right combination, because - finally - everything restored. It probably took a half-hour or more to sync, compared with maybe 30 seconds after a small change in info.

But hallelujah, my iPhone's back up and running. I'm glad to know what to do in the future!

Submitted by Pepper on August 23, 2007 - 4:43pm.
nice post. I'm sure this can come in handy to some users that don't know as much about their phone.

Just had to say...

Submitted by Unregistered (not verified) on September 18, 2007 - 1:29am.
Your instructions are the only ones that worked. Everyone else is saying hold the Home and Sleep/Wake button until the yellow triangle appears. Never worked. But when I did what you described, it worked perfectly.

iTunes still can't see the phone

Submitted by Bluemate (not verified) on October 20, 2007 - 7:00pm.
I did recover my iPhone before a few times. It always worked without problems.
Today I did try to update to 1.1.1....
iTunes did start normaly with the update but after a while my iPhone did reboot and stoped with the yellow triangel.
Now iTunes doesn't see the Phone any longer :-(
Reset with holding Home and Sleep for 25 Sec doesn't work any more ;-(
Any suggestions what I can do?

iTunes did change my USB driver

Submitted by Bluemate (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 3:09am.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluemate View Post
....
Now iTunes doesn't see the Phone any longer :-(
...
On an other PC it was possible to restore it again. So it looks like iTunes did destroy the USB driver for the iPhone on Windows site.
All other devices do work on that USB port.

Submitted by *tmansell (not verified) on October 22, 2007 - 4:35pm.
I have this same problem, have you resolved this? please e-mail. tmanselltg@hotmail.com
thanks

Submitted by Chad Vader on October 24, 2007 - 3:38am.
Quote:
Originally Posted by *tmansell View Post
I have this same problem, have you resolved this? please e-mail. tmanselltg@hotmail.com
thanks
Sorry, which problem are you referring to?

Error code 6 - restore failed

Submitted by TJinSZ (not verified) on October 25, 2007 - 7:20am.
Hi, i have a version 1.0.2 unlocked phone. I 'virginized' it to upgrade the phone to 1.1.1. I could restore the phone to a blocked stage again.
But then I couldnt get the upgrade (itunes always timed out). So I had to unlock the phone again. Also this worked
But now the phone asks me to connect it to iTunes in order to restore it. I have followed your procedure, but at the end received an error message 6, i.e. IPhone could not be restored.
Now I am clueless.

Submitted by Chad Vader on October 26, 2007 - 12:12pm.
Try another computer, cable, usb port... etc

restore-itunes?

Submitted by key_elani on November 1, 2007 - 2:33pm.
i'm sorry if i'm stupid or something, but are you suggesting that i let itunes restore my phone? i am nervous to do so because of the 1.1.1 firmware. i have 1.0.2. will that not brick my phone?
please help?

Submitted by iPodAddict on November 2, 2007 - 2:44am.
It only bricks your iPhone if you've unlocked it.

iphone

Submitted by *wen (not verified) on November 28, 2007 - 7:04pm.
my phone shows the yellow triangle connect to itunes and says it needs to be recovered, but itunes itself doesnt recognize the phone. what should i do? thanks!!!

"iPhone could not be restored. Unknown error occurred (1603)"

Submitted by Lulapucci on December 1, 2007 - 1:30am.
Can someone help me with this? I tried to update my iPhone to the newest version & after it took forever to download, it said that something happened and I had to "restore to factory settings" along with the yellow triangle warning sign.

I selected it and it started pulling the software off, then stopped in the middle of it and said that "iPhone cannot be restored. An unknown error occurred (1603)." AND it won't shut down when I hold the power button down-- the triangle just keeps popping up to connect to iTunes.

Any advice?? Do I bring this phone into an Apple store? Or god forbid do I have to send it out?

..

Submitted by transportr (not verified) on December 31, 2007 - 8:03pm.
many other 5sec 10sec things didnot worked but this, thanks,

Submitted by guitar hero (not verified) on January 6, 2008 - 5:43am.
OMFG THANKYOU MAN !
i thought my iPod was finished !
if anyone is reading this having any doubts, well DON'T !
BECAUSE THIS WORKS !

Error:(1603)

Submitted by seattleboii23 on February 20, 2008 - 5:08am.
Okay so I had some problems with my phone and restored and then it said please connect to iTunes. The computer would not recognize my phone. So I found this and it worked great but then when i clicked restore it would not restore it just said error: (1603) cannot restore iphone. Please can someone help and is there an way on how to get it out of recovery mode??

Submitted by JFrappuccino on February 20, 2008 - 11:19am.
You can download the 1.1.2 jailbreak and use that program to kick it out of recovery mode

Submitted by aniketsharma9865 on March 13, 2008 - 5:35am.
but i have an unlocked 1.1.3 version
if i did this then my phone will be updated to 1.1.4 n locked
my iphone has sound problems it doesnt plays all the UIsounds
i tried everything but nothing worked
isnt there other way so that my phone remins to 1.1.3 n unlocked even after restoring to itunes
plz help

Dude!

Submitted by BiNk (not verified) on April 8, 2008 - 12:43am.
You Just Saved My Ass, I Thought The Phone Was Dead. It Wouldnt Turn On Completely, Just Stays At That Damn Apple And Then Freezes. Looked Up Online And You Were The Only One Who Had A Solution! Next Time I'll Wont Start Downloading A Buncha Crap From Installer And Untrusted Sources. Thanks

Recovery

Submitted by Aschi (not verified) on April 9, 2008 - 1:43pm.
Thanks a Lot!!
It helped me making my Phone running again...
Hold Home and Power on didn't work (black screen after apple logo).

...sorry for bad englich

thxs thxs thxs

Submitted by yannick (not verified) on April 17, 2008 - 11:32am.
thank you so much i thought i could throw my iphone away
but thanks to you its fixed again so thank you soooooo much


greetz yannick

Error 6

Submitted by *DiversePod (not verified) on April 20, 2008 - 10:03pm.
I too am getting the itunes could not restore iphone unknown error 6.... I really would appreciate someones help, i have tried restore in recovery mode, in dfu mode, ive tried re jail braking, ive tried using iliberty, ibrickr, and ziphone to exit out of recovery mode, ive tried all the usb ports on my comp, aswell as a second comp. I've deleted and reinstalled itunes, all to no prevail. I believe i changed some files through winscp i.e proxy.pac, as well as /private/var/root/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist... i was attempting to do an edge fix for iphone 1.1.4 fw. any help or suggestions is so greatly appreciated....

Error 6

Submitted by *diversepod (not verified) on April 20, 2008 - 10:10pm.
Error 6 help!!!! I truely appreciate the great forum and posts and would be forever greatful if someone knows the fix for error 6 itunes cant restore iphone... i was hoping someone might know a 1.1.4 virginzer command prompt for iphuc or ibooter???... I am wondering is there any access to my iphone root directories (like winscp) but without wifi connection??? My phone is bricked and I have tried every restore option other than command codes...

Iphone not working

Submitted by chevyboy1 on April 21, 2008 - 2:46pm.
Installing a software to create ringtones and the software called ibrickr froze and i restarted it and all that the iphone doing is showing a apple symbol and the it show a black screen with white numbers and letters scrolling through the whole screen, can anyone please help me I'm desperate, my email is thq_man1@hotmail.com, i check it daily.

Submitted by Ipod Touch Fan on April 26, 2008 - 12:23pm.
1st. there is a new app for creating ringtones from your iphone. its an 3rd party app (yes n installer one)

Also. Not to be correcting anyone. But the thread starter. (yes the admin) should also add a trick that will work when your iphone is running slow. This is VERY good when an app is stuck and holding the home botton wont work.

HERE IT IS:

Into: Your iphone is stuck. Easy way to fix it without restoring. follow this steps to save it. will work on any version. even on 2.0 illigal ones. (NOONE PM ME ABOUT THEM!!!) BE sure that your iphone isnt connected to the itunes cable because then you could be doing a DFU insted of this.

CLick the power (sleep/wake) botton and the home botton at the same time. Keep holding them until the iphone screen goes black. Keep holidng them until the applelogo appears. When it appears. Immidiatley release ALL the bottons and let it boot. You r now done.

p.s. sry for the color,bold and undeline problems. Trust ME. This WILL!! work. If not pm me sayong u mess it up. (not my fault) and ill help u get it back with all your apps and more. TRUST ME.

p.s. 2. If u get it accidentally into DFU. I have a trick up my VERYY long sleeve to get it out of DFU (restore mode). Just pm me.

Thank you

Submitted by *jstsaved (not verified) on April 27, 2008 - 10:53am.
thanks for the help i thought my phone was as good as dead

Submitted by Ipod Touch Fan on April 27, 2008 - 10:07pm.
sure. pm me if anything,

Submitted by karenadams on April 30, 2008 - 11:55pm.
Hi. I read your suggestions and I am in Recovery Mode now. Here is my question... The apple logo is on my phone with the little wheel on the bottom looping. It has been 'recovering' for over an hour now. Is it supposed to take this long? I have quit it once already and had to re-recover becaue I thought it was stuck. In iTunes, the Restoring iPhone software... progress bar is full, but the little wheel just keeps churning.

I guess I am wondering if I am just impatient or is something wrong? I have no error messages, but just going on almost 2 hours of Restore?? HELP!!!!

Urgently help

Submitted by Firozram on May 3, 2008 - 11:03am.
Quote:
Originally Posted by karenadams View Post
Hi. I read your suggestions and I am in Recovery Mode now. Here is my question... The apple logo is on my phone with the little wheel on the bottom looping. It has been 'recovering' for over an hour now. Is it supposed to take this long? I have quit it once already and had to re-recover becaue I thought it was stuck. In iTunes, the Restoring iPhone software... progress bar is full, but the little wheel just keeps churning.

I guess I am wondering if I am just impatient or is something wrong? I have no error messages, but just going on almost 2 hours of Restore?? HELP!!!!
I've got da same problem & I've done exactly like you did.Still no luck. I had problems like no carrier bar in settings, no wifi and da network signal bar were low and after restarting and in a few minutes this message display's on da screen" Ur iPhone needs repairing.Contact apple.....". Somebody please help ASAP. Pls.

thank you!

Submitted by *glad person (not verified) on May 5, 2008 - 3:07pm.
you saved me. Really useful trick. It really works!

thanks

Submitted by collin (not verified) on May 7, 2008 - 11:48am.
thanks it worked, I thought I might have to take it in to service, and I've only had it a month

Please Help

Submitted by *NEED HELP (not verified) on May 9, 2008 - 6:26pm.
Hi, My iPhone was working perfectly fine and all of the sudden it wouldnt turn on and it was showing the symbol of the ipod connector to itunes. I connected it, clicked restore, waited for a couple minutes, and iTunes said that it had been restored! However nothing changed on my phone. It is still showing that symbol? I really need my phone to work! can you please help?

Changing USB port seems to be working

Submitted by *vincus (not verified) on May 13, 2008 - 3:05pm.
I had this unknown error (9) and unkown error ocured (1) problem via 7.5 and 7.6 itunes with a new phone, reinstalling itunes did not help, putting the phone into another USB port seems helped, Thx guyz

Vincus

Did you ever figure it out?

Submitted by Crazy stuck (not verified) on May 16, 2008 - 12:27pm.
I have one doing the same thing!


Quote:
Originally Posted by chevyboy1 View Post
Installing a software to create ringtones and the software called ibrickr froze and i restarted it and all that the iphone doing is showing a apple symbol and the it show a black screen with white numbers and letters scrolling through the whole screen, can anyone please help me I'm desperate, my email is thq_man1@hotmail.com, i check it daily.

Iphone problem

Submitted by *Tim (not verified) on May 17, 2008 - 1:51pm.
my iphone is fully unlocked and its stuck on that apple logo.I tried restoring and updating with itunes,but it still does that.Do i have to take my iphone for repair services outside?

Solution to Error Code 6

Submitted by Holk (not verified) on May 29, 2008 - 9:01am.
After 6 hours of desperately trying to restore my iphone and constantly getting this darn error 6 -message I finally got it to work ( before that I really thought I could through it away)

I have read hundreds of comments and watched various videos on how to solve this error code - finally I figured out that the problem has to do with the itunes Version: I was using itunes 7.6.2.9....it just wont work with that one.

On my girl friends PC i discovered an older version: 7.5.0.20. This version in combination witha different usb-cable worked out just fine. I restored directly to FW 1.1.4 and after restoring made use of Zire....excellent...everything was unlocked, jailbreaked and activated.

Hope it helps you
Cheers

Thank you so much

Submitted by cuber (not verified) on June 4, 2008 - 5:18am.
Thanks man! I totally messed up my iPhone, and you instructions helped me restore it!

yellow triangle

Submitted by *charmed123 (not verified) on June 18, 2008 - 4:01pm.
Did you lose all of your data when you did the restoring? I have the last picture of my Dad with my son prior to his death last week and my phone is locked with a yellow traingle on the screen that says please connect to ITunes. The message to restore states everything will go back to their original state and you will lose all your data. I can not lose the picture so any other suggestions?

BSD root

Submitted by *Heath (not verified) on June 19, 2008 - 5:03pm.
A guy at work unplugged his phone halfway through the unlocking process and now his phone looks like a DOS menu and it says BSD root over and over. Won't connect to itunes either. Can anyone help?

Ssh?

Submitted by oink (not verified) on June 19, 2008 - 7:35pm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by *charmed123 View Post
Did you lose all of your data when you did the restoring? I have the last picture of my Dad with my son prior to his death last week and my phone is locked with a yellow traingle on the screen that says please connect to ITunes. The message to restore states everything will go back to their original state and you will lose all your data. I can not lose the picture so any other suggestions?

Hi man,

Get that picture out first via ie. SSH! It's not as hard as it sounds. Find a SSH to iphone tutorial, just google it. Basically what you do is; download a program that let's you ssh (like winSCP), find your iphone's ip address on your router's admin web interface, ssh into your iphone with default login 'root', password 'alpine', and locate the picture folder just by browsing, and downloading it.

Very descriptive tutorials for this are located online, keep googlin'! Good luck too!

help guys! thanks!

Submitted by *need help (not verified) on June 20, 2008 - 2:20pm.
when i hold the home button FOR A LONG TIME no yelow triangle appears! aaaargh! what should i do? any advise? thanks.

and also..

i wanted to delete icons in my iphone but the x button that used to appear in the icons i want to delete vanished! now i cant delete any icons.

my themes doesn't appear too..

my keyboards in sms is a wreck!

anyadvice? thanks! it would really be appreciated!

restore unlocked 1.1.3 or not

Submitted by tmmt (not verified) on June 20, 2008 - 2:38pm.
my i phone was working perfectly untill i deleted a lot of the games and other themes etc which i had downloaded from the installer .... after i exited the installer the round processing icon came which comes every time you install or unistall anything from the installer ... it went on for more than 10 mins so i pressed the home and on button together and switched it off ... since then every time i switch it on a black screen with an apple logo appears and it freezes their... the version is 1.1.3 , and my itunes can detect the iphone , it tells me about the free memory and all that stuff . i was even able to look at the pictures in the phone through windows explorer ... pls help ... should i restore it ... will it get bricked

Submitted by kevo (not verified) on July 11, 2008 - 11:25am.
Thanks a bunch, i appreciate it. this helped alot. better than some of the other websites

Thank You!!!

Submitted by THANK YOU!!!! (not verified) on July 11, 2008 - 1:39pm.
thank you so much i'd tried everything that i could find on how to fix my iphone but most of what i could find was how to fix it after trying to jailbreak/unlock it which wasnt what i was trying to do...THANK YOU!!!!

Submitted by Snoop1990 on July 13, 2008 - 5:15am.
We are happy to help you guys.

It Worked!

Submitted by Tricia4718 on July 13, 2008 - 10:01am.
After 16 hours of "restoring" (overnight and no I didn't sit here for that long), I tried the process listed and within 30 minutes I had updated the firmware to 2.0 and restored all of my apps, videos, photos, etc. Wonderful! I think I'll keep my iPhone now.
I was about ready to tell Apple where they could put their iPhones and switch to another cell phone. While I LOVE my iMac, I've not been as happy with my iPhone. Yes, I was one of those early buyers that got bitten when Apple dropped the price.
Will be checking out the rest of iPhone Alley forums for other useful info.

1.1.3

Submitted by alraf (not verified) on July 27, 2008 - 10:54pm.
hi. i have a huge problem, i suppose. please help. here it goes:

i had a 1.1.2 jailbroken and just last night i decided to update to 1.1.3 using Dev Team's Official release 1.1.3. The updating took around 30 minutes or so. Anyway, it totally worked and since it was past bedtime, I decided to explore my 'new phone' the following day. Unfortunately after waking up, my phone was totally a 'wreck'. I turned on my mobile and a sync cable pointing to iTunes logo appeared. I plugged the cable and revoked my iTunes (im using Mac Book). It says that my iPhone is in recovery mode. I have no choice but only the RESTORE button is active. I am afraid that if I click on RESTORE, it may even cause havock to my mobile.

PLEASE HELP! huhuhu!

i have the same promblem help me please if u find solution

Submitted by Unregistered (not verified) on August 10, 2008 - 6:24am.
i have the same promblem help me please if u find solution