Cannot restore, possibly dead?

I have a secondhand 3GS that was given to me with a broken screen about a year ago. I finally got and installed a new display.
The phone doesn't power on when I hit the sleep/wake button and nothing happens when I attempt to reset it.
When I plug it into the computer iTunes tells me that it detects it and that it's in recovery mode.
When I attempt to restore, the screen lights up white and after a few moments iTunes tells me that that it cannot be restored and gives error code 21.
I've gone through all the related pages for trouble shooting and code 21 but haven't been able to resolve it.
Is there any hope or do I have a paperweight?

wjosten wrote:
You're positive the error was 21? Any firewalls...on your router? Do you have access to another computer?
The message in iTunes is:
"The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An unknown error occured (21)."
I cannot 100% rule out the possibility of something in the router here. I'll attempt it on another computer in a different location this evening when I get home.
Message was edited by: Alareth

Similar Messages

IPhone 4s stuck in Recovery Mode. CANNOT Restore. Help!

I need help getting my iPhone out of recovery mode. All that the screen shows is a black background, the white charger, and an arrow pointing at the iTunes icon. When I plugged the charging cable into my computer to recharge my phone's battery -- it had gotten below 10% before the screen changed to this -- iTunes tells me that I need to restore my iPhone.
Here's the problem. Although my back up is pretty much up to date -- I backed up yesterday -- this afternoon, I was at a sports event my company held, with more than 300 participants, all children. I took more than 100 (possibly 200) photos of the children at the request of the company president, to use on the company's web site and social media accounts (I am the company's webmaster). My phone battery died (the Apple logo came up, and then the screen went blank) as the last of the award winners was on the podium (it happened to be my son, so a friend snapped his photo). When I got into the car, I plugged the phone in, and all I got was the low battery icon. When I got home and plugged the phone into the AC base, the charger/iTunes graphics came up. I thought it odd that iTunes was being requested, so I took the phone and the cable and plugged into my laptop... where I was informed of the need to restore the phone.
I CANNOT restore. I CANNOT lose those photos. I already showed them to my boss (my NEW boss... I only got hired last week!) and she was very excited about how great they'll look online. The site is sorely lacking in photos of our children's events. I cannot restore because it will go back to what I had yesterday... and I need these photos!
How can I NOT restore? Please don't suggest my purchasing some software package. The reason I got this job is because I don't have any income and I can't afford $70 software or the time. If the phone must be restored, then I most definitely will need help in attempting to recover the lost data (the photos!). Please, please help... I just spent the last four hours taking these photos and I cannot afford to lose them! Regardless of what it says here under Product, I hae an iPhone 4s and it is running the most up to date iOS, whatever number that is at this point in time. Thank you in advance for your help!

It is unfortuante that this happened. However, the iPhone will have to be restored. There is no option other than maybe some third party software, if there was another option, you would know already.
You could restore it and see if you had iCloud photostream on. It stores photos you take for up to thirty days. If it was enabled, restore your device and turn it on in settings -> icloud and those photos will show up no problem.
If you did not, it is a possibility that something like dropbox was performing backups of those photos.
I am really sorry this happened to you with the new job and everything, but a restore is unfortunately required as your iPhone has already lost this data anyway.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4486

Cannot Restore Apps On Older iPhones

I am still a happy user of an iPhone 2G, running iOS 3.1.3 (the latest compatible iOS version).
Some time ago, possibly after a faulty App Store update, my Slovoed application (a German dictionary bought 2-3 years ago for $20) stopped working.
I first tried to reinstall it from the App Store : no luck, the present Slovoed version (3.28) is not compatible with iOS 3 anymore.
I then thought, no problem, since I have a Mac iTunes save of my iPhone 2G, I will restore the proper Slovoed application from iTunes : no luck, apparently iTunes kept only the latest, incompatible version of Slovoed, possibly because I was synchronizing on the same Mac not only this iPhone 2G under iOS 3.1.3 but also an iPad mini under iOS 6.1.
Searching the Internet, I then discovered that when you save/synchronize, iTunes keeps only the latest versions of Apps in the /Users/<user>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications folder, pushing the previously saved versions of the Apps to the trash.
You can recover IN THE TRASH (!!) the .ipa files of the applications... as long as you have NOT emptied the trash since.
No luck again in my case...
I then tried to get the compatible Slovoed 3.01.ipa file directly from Slovoed support : they refused "for security reasons" (?!), suggesting I get a refund from the App Store !.
At that point, I am completely stuck : I paid for an App which I cannot restore at all with the proper original version.
Bottom line : you can buy an Application on the App Store, install it on your iPhone, synchronize regularly your iPhone with a Mac or PC, and still being unable later on to restore the proper compatible version on your iPhone when you direly need it !
This would never have happened on any old Mac/PC for which you had kept the install disks !
One can understand that Apple wants to accelerate its older iPhones obsolescence, but it is completely abnormal you cannot restore from the App Store older applications you fully bought, when the latest versions have become incompatible, and while iTunes does not keep proper Apps backups.
Shame on you Apple, at some point there will be enough people with the same issue to give ground to a nice class action suite...

Answering to so many posts in such an authoritative way obviously gave you a false superiority complex...
But may be if you don't want to understand what is plainly written, it is just because you are a troll paid to discourage those too critical about Apple ?
It is Apple who decided to have the App Store maintain a single App version for download, when they could as easily differentiate between versions depending on the iPhone version or iOS version.
It is Apple who built a save/restore mechanism in iTunes which does not allow restoration of Apps properly saved.
Sure, Apps developers could have Apps running on all 6 versions of iOS. But that never happened in the Mac/PC world, that will not happen in the iOS world, and anyway that's not what I am asking for.
I am asking for a save/restore mechanism WHICH WORKS and restores the iPhone in the same state it was when saved, APPS INCLUDED !!!

I tried to restore my 120 gb iPod and got an error 1413 message - "cannot restore iPod". I started to reset turning the hold switch on and off and now my iPod seems to be permanently locked.

I tried to restore my 120 gb iPod and got an error 1413 message - "cannot restore iPod". I started to reset turning the hold switch on and off and now my iPod seems to be permanently locked. I had been having trouble syncing music, When I tried to sync, iTunes said it didn't recognize my iPod, even though I was on the iPod page in iTunes which showed the model number and the serial number of my iPod

I am having essentialy the same problem, but my iPod came from a PC and is now on a PC. The person who gave me the iPod didn't give me the wall adapter piece, so I bought a "Griffin" brand that was said to be compatible with this model. When I first plugged it into the wall, the Apple appeared with a bar underneath as though it was loading the new software. When the bar got to the end, the "plug into the wall" icon reappeared, but when I plug it in to the wall now, that icon is the only thing that shows, even after resetting and trying to run diagnostics.
When I doc the iPod on a charger I have or plug the USB into my computer and "reset" it, a battery with a charge icon appears, but there is no "motion" in the icon so it doesn't appear to be charging. The screen eventually goes back to the apple then to the "plug it into the wall" icon. HELP!!! Is is possible the wall adapters isn't the right one? Should I be charging through a firewire cable instead (which I also don't have...)?
Message was edited by: shenards
Message was edited by: shenards

Mac mini cannot restore

My mac mini is version late2012 updated to 10.8.5. It cannot boot up after I install USB driver ( I nned that driver for my 4G USB Dongle). After that I restore using internet and I'm sure it complete download during restore process ( log file shows all 424 chunk downloaded) but when it restart by itself it hang like before. I did this 2 times which mean that I waste my download quota about 9G. Anyway I try other way by making USB bootable both form 10.8 and 10.8.1. I purchase Lion via App Store and restore to USB. But still cannot restore.
One step that I not yet try is to completely Erase the volume. I want to customize during restore and repair back the driver and I love my 600G data and no backup yet.
Any help?

That means the startup drive is malfunctioning.
If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, and it's not already backed up, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot from the Recovery partition or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Why does it say, "Cannot Restore Backup" when I try to restore my iPhone using iCloud on iOS 7.1.1?

When choosing iCloud backup I choose the most recent backup but then after a few seconds it says "Cannot Restore Backup", what do I do?

its not possible to restore to a backup from a newer IOS

After updating to ios5.1 on my iphone 4s my phone when blank. Cannot restore. iTunes error 28 and 1602

After updating to ios 5.1 my iphone 4s went dead . Cannot restore in iTunes error message 28 and 1602. Help

Hello mms math 8,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information, take a look at:
iOS devices: Keeping device within acceptable operating temperatures
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2101
Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1414
Use iTunes to back up your device and transfer and sync any additional content to your computer.
iPhone and iPod touch: Charging the battery
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1476
About battery life and the battery
Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. Find more information about batteries foriPhone and iPod.
Find information on how long the battery is expected to last between charges.
Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced.
http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
Have a nice day,
Mario

Iphone 5 cannot restore from backup - help

I believe I have tried everything humanly possible. My iphone 5 was having issues where it was not receiving responses to group texts. It was recommended that I do a restore. I backed up via icloud first. I double checked to make sure I have more than one backup available. I usually save out my photos before restore but didn't do it this time and I regret it. My daughter's pics from her birthday (5/5) are on there and I'm afraid now I'll never get them.
These are the things I've tried:
tried restoring from all backups listed (many times)
apple replaced my iphone
tried accessing photos from photostream, didn't know about this till apple guy setup as new phone and made me enter my icloud. Think that may have wiped the photos I did have in there.
tried reserving static ip - think I did that right
looked into QoS but my time capsule doesn't support that
tried from multple wifi spots (3 spots)
tried dhcp reservation - think I did that right
apple guy checked that backups were there and ok, they were
Errors I've received:
At first I received, lost connection when it was almost done
After a while the error I get now is "cannot restore backup"
Always fails in the same spot, 85%
The first time I blindly trust icloud to do it's job it fails. Obviously lesson learned. All I want is my daughter's pics...I'm ok losing everything else. I just can't believe I can't download my icloud backup to my computer and restore that way. All 3 stored backups have failed, I know I probably have more.
My next step is to call apple support, but I fear I'm SOL.
Anyone have any ideas? Willing to try anything.
Thanks in advance!

Sorry to say my friend, but any second you going to lose from that moment on is a lost second. I d like to wish you luck and after all said and done - get back here and tell me if I was wrong. BTW if those were text group messages, your phone was never a problem.

TS3694 why i cannot restore update mini ipad?

why i cannot restore update mini ipad?

Nobody here could possibly know when you ask a question like that. It's like asking why won't my car start.
Supply some details, some information ... Anything that might help.

Cannot restore because incompatible or corrupted

Hi,
I recently accidently updated my iPod to the newest version 5.1.1 from 5.1 and in the process lost all my app data and notes etc. According to a thread I read earlier, even if I could restore it, it would not downgrade it back right? I cannot restore now because it says my iPod is either incomptabile or corrupt etc. Basically, all I want to do is get back all my app data. But I cannot use any of the backups before I accidently upgraded and lost everything because I get that error because I think it was not compatible since there are two different software versions. Can anyone find me a solution to this? Is it possible for me to email Apple to have them fix something up or something. I really want my app data back and all that.
Thanks in advance.

Well if iTunes still recongnize your iPod, then try to restore your iPod touch from DFU mode.
Put your iPod touch into DFU mode, then iTunes should be able to restore your iPod (I did this with my friend's iPhone).
Internet connection may be required.
To put your iPod into DFU mode:
1. Plug your iPod touch into your computer and turn it off.
2. Then hold down the power button for 3 seconds.
3. Then without releasing the power button, also hold down the home button for 10 seconds.
4. Then release the power button, but keep holding the home button down for 15 seconds.
5. Now you are in DFU mode.
6. Open iTunes.
7. Then there should be a pop up window asking you to restore your iPod and click restore. If not then find your iPod like you usually would and click restore.
8. Then wait until your iPod is done restoring.

Help needed! I cannot restore my iPhone 5, An unknown error occupied (1)

Help needed! I cannot restore my iPhone 5, An unknown error occupied (1)..

That is either going to be a hardware failure or your phone is jailbroken and something has gone awry with the baseband.

Back up iPhone contact while updating IOS 3, then contact lost on iPhone & cannot restore from backup that appear on iTunes! help please

back up iPhone 3G contact while updating IOS to IOS 6.1.3
then contact lost on iPhone
& cannot restore contact from last backup that appear on iTunes-files!: it is grayed (not pickabble!)
this is scary ! not ipressed by mac for once!
help please!

Well Hello,
maybe 3GS as your question indicates that only S update should work, and it works, but now only my name appear in contact! wao!

After upgrading to ios 8.1.1 my ipad 4 camera doesnt work i just got blank screen, but i still can use it for facetime, i supposed after upgrading to ios 8.1.2 it will fix but it doesnt work. i cannot restore to ios 7. hopefully, any suggestion to co

after upgrading to ios 8.1.1 my ipad 4 camera doesnt work i just got blank screen, but i still can use it for facetime, i supposed after upgrading to ios 8.1.2 it will fix but it doesnt work. i cannot restore to ios 7. hopefully, any suggestion to correct it? thank you

Hello pichastos,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
To troubleshoot this issue where your camera is displaying a black screen, please follow the information outlined below.
You see a closed lens or black screen
If you see a closed lens or black screen when you open the Camera app, try these steps:
Make sure that there’s nothing blocking the camera lens. If you’re using a case, try removing it.
Force the app to close, then open the Camera app again.
Restart your device, then open the Camera app again.
If your device has a front and rear camera, try both cameras by tapping (camera swap icon). If you see the closed lens or black screen on only one camera, take your device to an Apple Retail Store or Authorized Service Provider for more help.
Get help with the camera on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Take care,
Alex H.

My boyfriend knew my apple id and my password and when we broke up he changed it and he changed my alternate e-mail address so i cannot restore it. The problem is that my iPhone activation is linked to iCloud. What can i do? I have old pass and e-mai

My boyfriend knew my apple id and my password and when we broke up he changed it and he changed my alternate e-mail address so i cannot restore it. The problem is that my iPhone activation is linked to iCloud. What can i do? I have old password and old alternate e-mail.

Take it and its purchase receipt to a physical Apple Store and/or click here and contact Apple's Account Security team.
(124839)

TS3694 I cannot restore my settings on my Ipod touch. Getting error "2003"

I cannot restore my settings on my Ipod Touch (first generation). Getting error message "2003"

I have tried everything for the last three hours!

Cannot restore, possibly dead?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for