What should I do now that my device is locked?

[ricknmo]

I accidentally accepted the recent update and i tried to stop the download by holding the home and power buttons, now my phone is locked. Now what?

[Weth · Accepted solution]

Why didn't you want the recent update? When you hold down the home and power buttons that is like unplugging a computer in the middle of an update or disk write. Generally terrible idea.

Try this:

Make sure you have the latest iTunes version on your PC or Mac

Plug in the iPHones USB cable to your computer, but not into the phone yet

Press and hold home button, and while doing so, connect the lightning connection to your phone

Keep holding until you see a USB cable and iTunes logo on the screen.

iTunes will say "ITunes has detected iPhone in recovery mode, you must restore, click ok.

IF that doesn't work you need to try DFU

First:  Put the device into DFU mode.

DFU MODE STEPS

1. Hold the Power Button (3 secs)
2. Continue holding the power button and also hold the home button (15 secs)
3. Release the power button while continuing to hold the home button (10 secs)
4. Your device should prompt with the "Connect to iTunes Screen"

  Second: Plug it into your computer and open iTunes. It will either prompt to restore and up date or you can manually restore using the following steps.   IOS Restore Steps Before restoring:

• Verify that you are using the latest version of iTunes.
• Back up your device.
• Transfer and sync content to your computer.

Restoring your iOS device

1. Connect your device to your computer.
2. Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch when it appears in iTunes. Select the Summary tab, and click the Restore button.
   
3. Click Restore.
   
4. After a restore, the iOS device restarts. You should then see "Slide to set up". Follow the steps in the iOS Setup Assistant.
   
5. If needed, restore your device from a previous backup.

To get familiar with each type of restore, search for the milder "Restore mode iPhone" and also the more drastic "DFU mode iPhone"  Always try the restore first before DFU.