iPhone lock cant use itunes to restore

Wow, I know this is an old argument, but I feel I should speak on it since I can see that it's a huge misunderstanding between the two sides.

Firstly, I own a electronic repair store that fixes apple products, amongst other things, and I have this exact problem at the moment with a customer.

The problem I have isn't that we don't know the passcode. The phone was water damaged and brought to me for repair. Once we got it on, it went straight to the emergency call/itunes activation screen. There is no way to put a passcode in from this screen (that I know about). It only lets you make emergency calls.

Generally, all you have to due at this point, as it's generally related to phones that have just been completely restored and didn't have a sim card in during the restore and were unable to automatically activate, is to put in a sim card and then plug into iTunes. Well, it has a sim card in and it's now plugged into iTunes, but it says that there's still a passcode on the phone and there's a personal background image set as the background of the emergency call screen. So, it hasn't been completely wiped, but it's needing to be activated.

The customer has given me the passcode, but there's no way for me to put it in, and there's no way for iTunes to activate it while the passcode is active. This problem is generally related to some sort of damage to the phone. I've seen it before. The problem is that the only way to get around it is to force a restore on the phone, but then she will loose all her data (which isn't backed up).

So, back to the extremely misunderstood original question of this thread. How can you bring up a screen to input the passcode when the phone is in this mode......based on my years of working with these, it's not possible, but I'm open to ideas.

Sorry for the long post. I figured it was necessary since the original argument began due to everyone not really being clear on the actual problem

This thread was left dead for a reason: There is no way to bypass that screen without bypassing the iPhone passcode system, and our forum rules prevent anyone from giving that info out, as it USUALLY (maybe not in your case, mind you) points to a stolen iPhone.

The question wasn't misunderstood, it's just given the forum rules, we're unable to give an answer.

Hi All. Just wanted to add my thoughts as this is an interesting one. I work in the criminal justice system and fully understand why fora like this would not want to help people who steal or buy stolen phones to unlock them. However, I suspect that most people involved in the trafficking of stolen goods are already connected to people who already know how to bypass security measures and are less likely to use sites like this than genuine people. I bought my iPhone about 14 months ago and it was fine right up until yesterday when it just crashed as I was using the satnav. I bought the phone new and put my own passcode in. I had exactly the same problem as identified above. Reading this thread, there did seem to me to be an assumption that passcode issues can never happen if the phone is legitimate and that anyone raising these issues is probably involved in the stealing of phones in some way. That is not accurate.

Anyways, just my thoughts.

Cheers

I bought my 3GS in Aug 2009. Recently activated the passcode feature. More recently, in planning on visiting a friend , proactively punched his street addy into a GPS navigation app. (bought off Apple App Store) the night before but did NOT hit home button. Next morning, my iPhone was comatose, 100% dead (I know that my batt life is seriously adversely affected whn using GPS apps, so can only assume that the GPS circuits continued to utterly depleted the battery). Ran battery up using car ciggy lighter power supply, iPhone admitted lobotomy and requested connection to iTunes to restore. Upon returning home (we managed to remember way to friend's...), on connecting to PC, "iTunes could not connect to iPhone coz it is passcode protected..."

4 points here:-
1. Sadly, I can attest this lock-out fault can can and DOES happen to genuine owners thru day-to-day use of device, let alone by water damage or forgotten codes
2. Cannot believe that Apple iPhone Op. Sys allows apps. to continue to draw down on battery power to the point of deleting the Op System itself - poor system design
3. Slightly disappointed that people jumped on mikew so hard for discussing a recovery mode that Apple were prepared to make public domain (tho now i read he **may** have edited his orig posts so perhaps i missed some of his nasty bits, if any)...
4 Also, sadly, i cannot seem to create the 'forced recovery' mode that MikeW described - damn.

regards all

Spinner134

Always nice to start the day with a good tickle of the funny bone......

In our case, it was 'friends' trying to break her password on her temporarily unattended phone. This is SOOOooo frustrating and an Iphone flaw, to be sure. There SHOULD BE some option for those of us WHO KNOW that password to login to itunes (or whatever) and defeat this locked down phone without having to take it in for service, having to do a full restore, etc. I've read some posts elsewhere on 'jailbreaking' but would prefer to stay on this side of the tracks for now. If I end up seeing this phone restored though with all the loss of data, I'll be looking at the jailbreaking option the next time. Another point I'd like to make and this one is out of frustration. NOT EVERYONE looking for a solution here is a thief. Some of us KNOW THE PASSWORD and just need the backdoor in to get an opportunity to get that password entered. All we can do with this phone is make emergency calls - no opportunity to put in the legit users password and that's the solution many of us are looking for and it DOES appear to be a common problem with these phones.

i made a new account just to voice out on this. while i totally understand a forums policy on revealing info on bypassing passcodes, what i don't understand is you continue to defend your forum's policies, you don't seem to enforce them as there are clearly written instructions on how to bypass the passcode as shown above. actually i think i do understand:

the only reason i ever landed into this website was because i was looking for a way to bypass the passcode. i would never have even heard of this website if it wasn't for someone releasing this info. you better thank yourselves for keeping this post as it popped up #2 on google when i searched for "restore iphone passcode" thus giving you ad revenue. and let's face it, the reason why you have this forum is to make a few bucks is it not? no disrespect, i'd suggest the mod just keep quiet if this entire thread isn't going to be deleted anytime soon cause it sounds very hypocritical.

attitude is subjective, and you forgot the part where i said 'no disrespect' before i made that suggestion.

i have no qualms over what's going on here, it's just a word to the wise.

the method did work though so thanks

Having read all of the previous posts and with full understanding of why breaking pass codes is forbidden, I have a problem that I haven't seen addressed. How do I find the idiot who left his iPhone in my store? I'm trying to get past the pass code problem so I can find him, a friend or a relative and return his phone!

Take it to AT&T

Well, that's the problem. I live on a barrier island. There is no AT&T here. This would require a $17 round trip ferry ride (30 minutes in each direction), plus time and gas to get there and back. Now, I'm a good person, but I think that's going above and beyond for someone that left his phone and hasn't called my store to see if he left it here. I miss the old days when you could just check someone's contacts and call "home" or "mom." I guess "Donovan" is outta luck and I'll just toss his iPhone.

Thanks for the info on how to get past lock screen. Was able to help my brother out with his old 3g.. since he cant seem to find his recently bought 4 -_-

Ok ive read as much as I can on this topic and I need HELP please please please.

I am trying to restore my itouch to original factory settings as the touch screen has randomly stopped working (potentially water damage?not sure) I understand the method to restore....connect to computer, restart by pressing action button and top left button, when it powers back on continue holding action button and it starts the restore. Heres the problem, it ask for my passcode to continue with restore on itunes.................MY TOUCHSCREEN DOESNT WORK so I cant type passcode in. Can any please help on how to force a restore with touch screen working?! PLEASSSSEEEE!!

Restore as new unit


Sent from my iP4

....sorry to be a newb but what does that mean? Restor as unit?