iPhone Won’t Restart or Force Restart Not Working? How to Fix

Restart iPhone, which means a soft restart. Restarting iPhone is at the software level to reboot some iPhone network settings and close all app processes. And turn iPhone off then on. It won’t delete any data on your iPhone. This way can fix some basic issues, like iPhone acting sluggish, network errors, home screen layout, or location & privacy problems.

Usually, when your iPhone is launching sluggishly and become so unresponsive, you may need to turn it off and on again. While sometimes, it may be refusing to turn on after turning off. Then what to do when your iPhone won’t restart? First, retry restart and if it’s still not working, you can check some methods in this post.

Fix iPhone Won’t Restart with the One-Stop Solution

No matter iPhone won’t restart or force restart, there is a one-stop solution that can help you out with the dilemmas. This solution is named as PhoneRescue – iOS System Recovery. It’s software designed to help iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch users completely and professionally.

With PhoneRescue, you may fix all kinds of iOS issues with ease, including iPhone won’t restart, stuck in Apple logo, etc. You can check its main features below to get what you need:

Now, feel free to follow the steps to fix iPhone won’t restart or force restart not working:

Step 1. After downloading PhoneRescue, please connect your iPhone to the computer with its USB cable > Choose Repair iOS System mode > Click Right Arrow to continue.

Step 2. Choose Advanced Mode to repair your iPhone. It won’t erase anything on the iPhone.

Step 3. Follow the on-screen instruction in the window to enter the Recovery Mode.

Step 4. After entering the Recovery Mode, check your device info and click the “Download” button to download the firmware for your iPhone.

Step 5. After the downloading process completes, PhoneRescue will repair your iPhone to normal automatically. Minutes later, you’ll see iOS repairing completed page.

How to Force Restart iPhone

Firstly, the best solution to fix iPhone won’t restart may enable force-restart, also known as a hard reset. Just as the above mentioned, restart/reboot iPhone is at the software level to refresh the device. While force restarting is a hardware-level restart, so it can work when your iPhone is frozen or black or somehow malfunctioning. If your iPhone won’t restart for many times, follow the steps below to try to force restart it:

For iPhone 8/SE 2, iPhone X to iPhone 13 models:

1. Quickly press and release the Volume Up button.
2. And press and release the Volume Down button.
3. Then press and hold the Side button. Release the Side button when the Apple logo appears.

For iPhone 7 series:

1. Press and hold the Volume Up/Down button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.
2. Release the buttons when the Apple logo appears.

For iPhone 6 and earlier models:

1. Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time.
2. Release the buttons when the Apple logo appears.

Reset iPhone with iTunes

If you’d like to reset iPhone to fix it won’t force restart, iTunes can always help you.

Open iTunes > Tap the phone icon > Choose Restore iPhone > Then follow the steps to continue.

Reset iPhone in Recovery Mode

There is a final way you can try if force restarting is either not working. That is put your iPhone into recovery mode and reset it with iTunes. This is a final method you can try since iPhone data will be erased after reset. You can follow the steps below to reset the won’t restart iPhone to factory settings.

1. First, check if there is an available update on iTunes. If yes, just download and install it on your computer.
2. Put your iPhone into recovery mode and connect it to the computer.
3. iTunes will detect that your iPhone is in recovery mode. Just tap the Restore button.
4. After restoring to factory settings, your device will restart and you can proceed to set it up as new.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to do if iPhone won’t turn off even with hard reset?

Is it common that iPhone won’t turn off even with hard reset? Yes, if this problem occurs it means that there is a problem with the software or hardware of the phone. If your phone is still working, you can try to restore it to factory settings. But if it is a hardware problem, you may need to contact Apple to fix it for you.

How to restart iPhone 13?

To restart your iPhone 13, you can press and hold down the Power and Volume buttons until a slider appears on-screen.

The Bottom Line

If your iPhone is frozen and won’t restart, you can try force restart first. If force restarting is not working at all, you may need to repair it with PhoneRescue. Also restoring iPhone is another way when you already created an iPhone backup or you don’t worry about data loss. Now, download PhoneRescue and start fixing your problem!