An unresponsive iPhone can be very frustrating since we rely a lot on all the features that this device offers. There are a few things that you can try if your iPhone has a black screen and it doesn’t start up. In this article, you will find 5 solutions that will allow you to turn on your iPhone. These steps work on iPhone 4 and above.
Solution 1 – Recharge
If the red empty battery icon is displayed, your iPhone may not work until it has at least a minimum charge in the battery. If the battery is completely drained,it is likely that you won’t see the battery recharge image for a while. If the display is blank when you plug it, allow a few seconds to see if the icon appears. If the red “filler” of the battery icon is visible and it flashes three times before the screen goes black, your iPhone is not getting power to charge. Keep in mind that you should always plug the iPhone into a USB source with high power like the mains charger or the USB port on a computer that is plugged in.
Solution 2 – Restart
You can restart your iPhone by pressing and keeping holding the Sleep/Wake button on the top of the handset down until you see the red slicer onscreen. You can slide it across to disable it, then repeat to switch the phone back on. If you have an iPhone 7 or 7S, you need to press and hold the Sleep/Wake button on the right top side of the device. If the iPhone is frozen and it is not possible to restart it in the normal way, you can try the below:
- Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for minimum 10 seconds.
- If the red slider is shown or the screen dims, continue pressing the two buttons until you see the Apple logo.
Keep in mind that if you have an iPhone 7 or 7S, you need to press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Volume Down buttons at the same time to force a restart.
Solution 3 – Reset
You can reset bu clicking on Settings > General and then Reset All Setting. A reset of all the settings will be performed, putting them back to the factory defaults. This doesn’t impact the data on the iPhone.
Solution 4 – Restore
If the above options are not effective, the next step would be to perform a full back up and Restore your iOS device.
- The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes.
- Then you can connect your iPhone to your computer and select it when it shows under Devices in iTunes.
- Make sure that all your photos, contacts and videos are up to date. This is specially important if you haven’t synced your device recently.
- Click on the Summary tab and then click Restore.
- You will be asked to back up your iPhone, if you haven’t done so before. All the data and settings on your iPhone will be backed up.
- Click on Restore, wait until the iPhone completes the restore process and resets to the Home Screen.
Solution 5 – Force device into recovery mode
This should be the last resource, but if anything else fails, you can try forcing the device into recovery mode. Just keep in mind that recovery mode deletes all the data on your device. You should only try these steps if you have recently backed up on iCloud or your computer.
- Switch off the iPhone
- Plug the USB cable into your computer, but not into the iPhone
- Hold down the Home button and then plug the USB cable into the device
- Once you see the Connect to iTunes screen, let go of the Home button. If you don’t see the Connect to iTunes screen, try steps 1 to 3 again.
