iPhone screen shows iTunes icon with USB cord unplugged and won't startup

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Level 1

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iPhone screen shows iTunes icon with USB cord unplugged and won't startup

I just turned on iPhone 3GS and saw notice to update it which I did. After updating the screen shows a iTunes icon and unplugged USB cable. Not sure what is going on and wonder what to do next. I've tried to restart by holding down sleep button and home key in various ways I remember as helping to start up an iPhone when it is stuck, but so far no luck. I tried to upload an image of the screen that I took with PhotoBooth and saved to iPhoto, but it will not upload for reasons beyone me. 😕

iPhone , MAC, Mac OS X (10.5.2), portable

Posted on May 7, 2012 10:50 PM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

140,780 points

May 7, 2012 10:54 PM in response to georgew6

That means it wants you to attach it to your computer with its USB cable, and run iTunes:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386

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Answer 2

georgew6 Author

Level 1

1 points

May 7, 2012 10:59 PM in response to John Galt

I did that and the only thing I have found is box popping up with this message: <<<iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes.>>> When I click to restore there is a message that restore will reset iPhone to factory settings. I don't feel that is a good choice if it wipes out all the settings I have put in over the last few years. Isn't there some other way to restart the iPhone?

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

140,780 points

May 7, 2012 11:04 PM in response to georgew6

It will erase the phone, but it will subsequently be restored to precisely the condition it was in when you last synced it with that computer, in addition to the upgraded iOS version.

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Answer 4

georgew6 Author

Level 1

1 points

May 18, 2012 10:14 PM in response to John Galt

This is the answer and I did this, but the result was not too good. I thought the iphone and Macbook were synconized much more recently than it turned out to be. I am thinking that I must have it set to manually syncronize to avoid slowing down the computer. Now will check that out. Manually could be OK, if I remember to syncronize often enough.

Thanks for your help.

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