I Phone 4: pin forgotten

[Deleted]

Hello all - given that I'm not an iPhone user, I seek the collective wisdom of the Lounge.

My clever 16 year old has put a pin on his iPhone 4 and...forgot what the pin is. We've tried many combinations unsuccessfully. Whatever pin he chose, he selected it so well that none would be able to access his phone... including him, apparently.

Is there a way to bypass this and reset the pin? Can this be accomplished without wiping the applications and memory, and rebooting the phone? If that's the only way, we'll do that; just trying to avoid that if possible. If so, how do we accomplish this?

I should add that he did not use this as his phone, but rather like an iPod so it does not have cell phone service. Many thanks in advance.

[hemster]

*** Before doing any of the below steps, if you have an Apple store nearby you could pop in and consult with one of their geeks. I'm sure this is a problem they've seen relatively often. ***

If you have previously synced your device with iTunes, you may be able to reset the passcode by restoring the device.

If you have never synced your device with iTunes, or you do not have access to a computer
If you see one of following alerts, unfortunately you need to erase the device:

"iTunes could not connect to the [device] because it is locked with a passcode. You must enter your passcode on the [device] before it can be used with iTunes."
"You haven't chosen to have [device] trust this computer"

If you have Find My iPhone enabled, you can use Remote Wipe to erase the contents of your device. If you have been using iCloud to back up, you may be able to restore the most recent backup to reset the passcode after the device has been erased.

Alternatively, place the device in recovery mode and restore it to erase the device:

Disconnect the USB cable from the device, but leave the other end of the cable connected to your computer's USB port.
Turn off the device: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until the red slider appears, then slide the slider. Wait for the device to shut down.

While pressing and holding the Home button, reconnect the USB cable to the device. The device should turn on.
Continue holding the Home button until you see the Connect to iTunes screen.

iTunes will alert you that it has detected a device in recovery mode. Click OK, and then restore the device.

[Cory Cooper]

Yes, it is a fairly common issue. Unfortunately, there is no way of bypassing the lock. It is there for protection of your data in case of loss/theft.

Fortunately, all purchases from the iTunes Store should be backup up in iTunes on your computer, and can be re-downloaded for free if not.

hemster has some great advice/directions posted. You will have to follow his directions to get the iPhone reset and synced again. As he stated, anything that wasn't backed up/synced with iPhoto/iTunes/iCloud cannot be recovered.

Good luck, and let us know if you need further assistance.

C

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies. I was able to restore the phone but an iPhone geek said I had to do a complete restore. All info was lost but it's a valuable lesson learned and we now have the phone back. Thanks ot both of you for the suggestions.