My Iphone XR is stuck on the "verifying update" screen, will doing a forced restart reset my phone's factory settings?

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My Iphone XR is stuck on the "verifying update" screen, will doing a forced restart reset my phone's factory settings?

My iphone XR was not working properly and was freezing up a lot, so I tried to update it, after it went to update it went to my lock screen with a pop up that says "verifying update" my phone has been stuck like this for over an hour and a half now, It wont let me hit any buttons on the screen therefor i cant swipe to shut it down. I found on apple support i could quickly hit the volume up , the volume down, and then hold the side button to "force restart" my phone, my only issue is i cant figure out if this will damage my phone or delete any of my personal photos and apps. Will doing this reset my phone to the factory default? or is it simply just forcing my phone to shut off?

iPhone XR

Posted on Jan 9, 2021 11:10 AM

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Answer 1

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MFT84

Level 1

31 points

Jan 9, 2021 11:25 AM in response to mjane27

Hi!

the procedure of the volume up, volume down and long press on right button it doesn’t erase any data, it’s just a reset of the power in the phone .

Said that, if done during an important update it could result in corrupted files and get your software stuck in a status that only a full erase and install can fix.

do you have a backup of your phone? Either iCloud or iTunes?

if yes it would be better so you can get stuff back in worst case scenario.

my suggestions are :

wait a bit longer

from here you risk your data to be lost :

Do the hard reset and see if it picks up from where you left or it goes anywhere else
if you get stuck on Apple logo and can’t get on with the update then connect phone to your laptop and open iTunes (or if you are on Catalina or later just open finder). Once connected do the hard reset again and will put the phone in recovery mode. From here you have 2 possibilities: update or restore.
I would start with update because is the best chance of keeping your data on, if it fails the update then you are only left with restore, where all data will be erased and bring phone back to factory settings and then bring back any previous backup.

Hope it’s clear, answer this if you want to ask more questions!

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Answer 2

mjane27 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 9, 2021 12:56 PM in response to MFT84

I do have icloud and I am pretty sure a lot of my stuff is saved on there. It has now been stuck on this screen for over 3 hours. So you suggest I try to do the reset? Or do I have to find a way to back up all my stuff first? thank you very much for answering.

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Answer 3

MFT84

Level 1

31 points

Jan 9, 2021 1:02 PM in response to mjane27

I would suggest to go on with the rest of my instructions.

Unfortunately there is no way to back up your phone right now, the only way to be sure would be to contact a data recovery company and see if they can get the data from the hardware, but this is a very expensive and time consuming procedure.

If you have you iCloud enabled there is a good chance at least some data are saved there, if you want to see what’s on your iCloud you can go to icloud.com and log in with your Apple ID, this will show you the content of your iCloud and and indication if part of the space available has been used for a backup.

hope this helps!

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