DFU Mode

How to Get your iPhone (in/out of) Recovery Mode and DFU Mode

Kiran Konathala • July 4, 2009 • 1 min read

Both recovery and DFU modes are often confusing which just adds to the frustration when accidentally put into either of these modes. You don’t have to restore completely in iTunes. That takes up a lot of time (around 20 minutes and if you have data, it may be longer to get it all back up and running). You can give the following combinations a shot and I have tested them both on iPhone 3.0.

DFU Mode :

Steps to recover from DFU mode :

  • Connect your iPhone to your computer.
  • Hold down the home button and the power button for about 10 seconds.
  • If your phone is connected to your computer you’ll hear a beep as when a USB device is disconnected.
  • Next just press the power button and your phone will startup as usual.

If you’ve accidentally put your iPhone in DFU mode, the steps mentioned above should do the trick.

If you’re in DFU and mid-way through a failed restore, then you will need a complete iTunes restore to get you out of the DFU mode.

Recovery Mode :

Steps to recover from Recovery mode :

  • Hold Power Button + Home button for 15 Secs.
  • Release buttons.
  • Hold Home button for 2 secs.

232 Discussion Comments

  2. Hi,

    I have a 3gs with I jailbroke using Spirit then my wife accidently tried to reset the phone and now it doesn’t get pass the Apple logo and processing sign. itunes doesn’t detect it and I have tried to hard reset, still no result. Any help would be appreciated.

  3. Hi,
    I jailbreak my iPhone 3GS 3.1.3 with spirit after reset it worked fine for few minutes and then went off. it is now completely off, I tried to use above instructions but no luck. When I am restoring it with itunes it is giving this error" The iPhone couldn't be restored, the device is not eligible for buildup"
    Please help I am stuck with this phone.
    Regards

    Sajad

    iPhone 3GS : 3.1.3 : Windows 7.

    2. your iphone will not work AT ALL on sprint. they run on two completely different radios. Sprint & Verizon run on CMDA, while T-Mobile & AT&T run on GSM. That's why Verizon & Sprint will never get the iphone unless they change the radios.

      1. what an asshole, he said he jailbroke the phone using SPIRIT, he wasn´t talking about the operator Sprint, learn to read before you post useless answers asshole!

  4. Hey, i just bought a used iphone 3g version 4.0.1 from a friend in miami. Now i am currently living in argentina and i put my sim card in it and it wont recognize it. I know i need to jailbreak and unlock it first but im stuck on the emergency call screen. and i cant restore it because itunes tells me that my iphone wont accept my sim card. And when i put it in recovery mode and i try to restore it back to 3.1.2 i get an error (1015 i believe) in the middle of the restore. Now i cant get out of recovery mode either. I need help! thank you

  6. my phone stuck in the restore mode after an attempt to update it from 4.0 to 4.0.1, and the above steps didn't work to get it out of the restore mode,please let me know if you have any ideas to get it back .i don't wannna restore it cuz i have so many photos that i can't give up them.
    thanks

  7. omg you talk for over 8 mins boring the shit out of us for summit that takes 20 seconds.
    Gesh what a load of shit, we dont need reasons why u may have done this or done that.
    Your worse than a fucking woman yapping!
    Shut the fuck up and just say what needs to be said.

  8. I can’t get into dfu mode but I can get in and out of recovery mode, but when I get out of recovery mode then I get to the slide for emergency call screen and can’t do anything, iPhone 3gs firmware 4.0, hasn’t been jailbroken before what do I do?

    2. I wouldn't advise custom firmware cos if it is stuck in dfu/recovery mode, we have to go to 4.0.2 no matter what. If you can find someone with official iPhone SIM to activate it, only then can we use jailbreak/unlock it.

  10. I am hoping that someone can help me. My phone is stuck in restore mode. I followed the steps above to get out of store mode, but right after I hold the power and home button and the apple appears, I release the power button and continue to hold the home button, but it goes right back to the usb cord and iTunes logo without an option to slide at the bottom, etc. I am afraid that I am going to lose everything. I dont want to restore. please help!

      1. please help me. ive been sitting here for an hour trying to do this. i do all these steps .nd nothing. it keeps going to the symbol. not gonna restore.
        PLEASEEE.

  11. Hi, I followed the instructions very carefully several times but when I release the power button and hold the home button after the phone tells you to plug it into iTunes, the iPhone stays on the apple logo screen. I've tried doing this many times but the same thing always happens.

  13. hi i have i phone 3gs with 4.1 firmware..i bought it from usa and i want to unlock t to use it in my country,turkey…how can i do it?? it is now in recovery mode as it seen in yur phone on the video..can u help me to unlock it??i tried everything but i couldnt do it..i need yur assistance ..plzz help me..

  14. I drained the battery on my 3gs iPhone. It is JB with Spirit. The phone is now stuck in recovery mode. I have tried the tutorials on how to get out of recovery mode but it is ot working, just end up with a black screen. Help please.

  15. I have a 14 month old 3gs iphone that has had only minor problems until the other day when I couldn't get any sound in my apps. The phone still rang and had volume to talk, but my apps had no sound. I powered off and tried to power on again, but it now it is stuck with the apple icon for over 12 hours. I have tried to unbrick, in & out of dfu. iTunes does not recognize the device. Any suggestions?

    1. Download TinyUmbrella and kick the iPhone out of recovery/dfu mode. Do you rely on unlock/jailbreak? If nothing else works, unhook the iPhone from your computer, try powering off the iPhone and then while holding the home button, plug the iPhone back in. You will get to recovery mode. Then you can get to the latest firmware (let me know if you rely on unlock before you do this).

  16. I got a difficult one. Recboot, Tiny Umbrella, iRecovery etc.. does not work, iPhone 3G always starts up in recovery mode. This is what happenend: I upgraded from 3.1.3 to 4.2.1 with Pwnagetool. This went fine but mobileme syncing did not work and GPS did not respond. So I loaded 4.2.1 again with Pwnagetool and the the error 1015 occured and the iPhone remained in recovery mode and I tried every tool available and also your tutorial. Is it a brick now?

    1. TinyUmbrella should have worked. I see you have a Mac – did you manage to preserve the baseband? What happens if you try to downgrade to a lower OS?

      I haven't come across a single brick, I have worked with so many iPhones! So don't lose hope 🙂

      1. Thanks for the answer, Kiran. I upgraded the baseband to 06.15. I tried to downgrade to 4.1 but no result. Error 1015 afterwards, iPhone goes into recovery mode. Just as I type this: downgraded to 4.0, then error 1015 and recovery mode but now I have some result with Tiny Umbrella exit recovery. I'm not out of the woods yet, I'm gonna try now to do a jailbreak/unlock with 4.0 or 4.1. Thanks!

  18. HELP! ok my iphone 3gs had 4.1 on it.
    I had it jailbreak & unlocked…and the unlock stated that I wouldnt be able to upgrade my firmware, ect… and i tried (accidentally) and it couldnt upgrade, and so I tried to restore it but everytime i try to restore it, it give me this code 1015.
    what can i do? my iphone is now stuck in recovery mode. =(

    1. Error 1015: This error is caused by attempts to downgrade the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch's software. This can occur when you attempt to restore using an older .ipsw file. Downgrading to a previous version is not supported. To resolve this issue, attempt to restore with the latest iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch software available from Apple.

  20. i have a JAIL BROKEN i pod touch 4g with ios 4.2.1stuck at the apple icon.i have a windows i tried tinyumbrella, but it wouldn't notice it. I've also sent it in and out of restore and dfu mode. i am using tinyumbrella on a different computer and do not have the saved shsh on it. i think that might be the problem, but if anyone else knows what to do, help!

    2. Hi, I did have the same problem a few minutes ago ^^. But I got it to work again. Put your ipod into recovery mode, then put it into DFU mode and finally do the normal boot with rednsow. If you dont know how, do like in the guy in the video. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95uTZqGUVNA but when the video comes to approximately 47sec and you will see the "Cydia crashing" annotation click that and do exactly like the guy does in that vid, I hope U can get it to work.

  21. I downloaded the facebook update to my iphone 3gs and I think it has now gone into recovery mode. If I press the power button, the apple logo appears for approx 20 secs then screen goes black. The same happens if I plug in the charger or plug it into the usb. When plugged in to usb, if I hold the power and home buttons for about a minute I can bring up the itunes/usb logo. Have tried your tips above but it doesn't work. Iphone is not jailbroken and worked perfectly up until this point. Unfortunately I have never synched it with itunes and am trying to find a way to fix it without a full restore as I have photos that I don't want to lose! Please help!!

  23. after i plugged my 3g itouch 32g into blackra1n, it rebooted straight into recovery mode and i cant get out. holding buttons doesnt work and pretty much anything you can think of hasnt worked…quickpwn…recboot none of it…and i have just about everything backed up to an external harddrive…but i NEED my notes…thats the only reason im going through all of this…for my notes…i have hundreds of lyrics in there (dumb i know) but i need them. When i plug it into itunes…it just shows "Ipod" and gives me the option to restore and itunes recognizes that its in recovery mode. i have spent days googling…i mean…i downloaded infuntastic and someone has said u can use it to get out of recovery mode but i dont know how…IPHUC and IRECOVERY also recognizes that the itouch is in recovery mode…but im not advanced with those programs to know what to do exactly. everything ive read for those programs doesnt work. My itouch was jailbroken before i plugged it into blackra1n with "jailbreakme". If im not mistaken, its a 32G 3.1.2 that i got LAST christmas.
    Thanks…

  24. hi, i have a iphone4 and while upgrading from 5.0 to 4.0.2 i got error 1603 and i can only see itunes logo and cable appearing in my iphone screen. I tried holding sleep/wake and home button continuosly untill apple logo appears and then again the same itunes logo and cable appear. please do help me in resolving this. thanks!!

  25. hi everyone. i accidentally put my phone in the wash yesterday, and while the "iphone in rice" trick worked in soaking up the moisture from the phone, i kept getting a message to plug my phone into itunes (i have a 3gs, with OS4.2 i think). when i plugged it into itunes, it was in recovery mode, so i restored the phone to factory settings. i had to do this several times but after a few tries, my phone finally switched on back to default settings. while all the data was wiped and the home button doesnt seem to be working, i was able to make a phone call and send some texts. just when i thought all was fine and dandy and i thought i could sync it back with itunes, when i plugged it back to my computer it went back to recovery mode and now i can't get out of it!

    my phone has never been jailbroken so I'm not sure why it's going on recovery mode loop – can anyone help me please? much appreciated.

      1. from what i understand, i have to run the program as an administrator? unfortunately am not able to do that from the computer I'm using as it's a work computer (as well as a work phone… uh-oh). anything else i can do?

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