When she got the phone, her live-in daughter (my aunt) set up the phone for her, and set up all the accounts, passwords and passcodes, as well as setting up FaceID among other things, I wasn't around during setup (I live in a different city)
Not long ago, an auto-update hit her phone (auto downloaded and installed), restarted, and in turn restarted Secure Enclave, asking for her 6 digit passcode (that those among the living can't seem to figure out)
Now I should probably mention at this point, I'm probably the most tech savvy person in my entire family, and I know when to stop, others in my family don't, and keep trying to "help", making matters worse, and downright refuse to listen to me. In this case, they just keep trying passcodes trying to find one that will work, now they did it one too many times and disabled the phone
My grandmother and I went to the Apple Store near her, and due to COVID-19 precautions, they won't even let us enter the store without an appointment, I schedule an appointment (which I was unable to honor) and left, at this point, we were trying to keep the data on her phone, so we were avoiding anything that would wipe it
While we were at the Apple Store, the guy said if we were willing to wipe the data (which we didn't at the time), we could restore it by plugging it into a (any) computer and restarting it in restore mode, I mentioned that all available computers we have at the moment (not including my personal computers, which I don't have access to right now) were (Windows) PCs and don't have iTunes installed (and we will not be installing iTunes, or any other extra software, on them), he said "that is fine, it will work on Windows, and iTunes is no longer required, just plug in the iPhone to USB, restart in recovery mode and BAM, done, you have a factory reset iPhone"
Time goes by and my cousin (the deceased's daughter) takes our grandmother to the same Apple Store, and they say "oh, no problem, we can back that up" and they set up and appointment, they go to the appointment, see that the iPhone is disabled and go "Ooooh, its disabled, yeah we can't back that up", back to square one
I then, while using my phone, remembered that my phone was backed up to iCloud, I later found out that even my mother's iPhone was backed up to iCloud, and it hit me, what if my grandmother's iPhone is already backed up to iCloud? She wouldn't lose anything in a factory reset anyway, it would all be on iCloud at least, and we could eventually get into that
Anyway, we all decide to just factory reset the phone and erase everything, so I go back over, get her phone and go back to that Apple Store, which again they wont accept walk-ins due to COVID-19, so I planned an appointment for next week, but while discussing it, we figured I could just take her iPhone home with me and use one of the computers here
Here's the problem, nothing they said at the Apple Store seems to be true, I plugged the iPhone into a computer (with Windows 10) that doesn't have iTunes installed and is not currently connected to the internet (but according to the guy at the Apple Store, he never said an Internet connection was required), after getting the iPhone into recovery mode, it just gave me a URL to go to (support.apple.com/iphone/restore)
So I grab my Windows tablet I have available (also Windows 10, and also without iTunes, but is connected to the Internet) and with the iPhone in recovery mode and connected via USB to the tablet, I go to that URL, and read the only part that seems to pertain to what I am trying to do
If you are the owner of the iPhone or the owner has shared all information with you then to open Activation Lock:- If it is Activation locked, read here --> Turn off Activation Lock - Apple Support Activation Lock for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
If you are not the owner of the iPhone and do not have the Apple ID and Password then there is no way that you can get into this iPhone unless the original owner shares the Apple ID and password to you. If you are lucky you can get into this iPhone if they (owner) accidentally remove the device from their apple ID.
Even if I was willing to, I am limited to a desktop PC without Internet access (meaning I can't download iTunes, because it can't download anything), and a tablet with a full SSD, there's simply no room on it to install iTunes
Apparently the only Apple employee that knows what error code 4010 is the person who created it. My support person has been trying for a long time now and I'm having trouble finding a direct answer on the internet. If you see an error in iTunes on your Mac or PC is no help with error 4010. People should not be directed to that page.
Error 4010 is usually an interference via your firewall or Antivirus. If you go into Windows Security and go to the Firewall & network protection tab, you can disable your public & private firewalls temporarily while you restore & update your apple device. You're welcome in advance :)
It is 12th of December 2019 at the time of writing this. I was not able to use macOs High Sierra anymore to factory reset iPhone 6S Plus in DFU mode. I had to upgrade my macbook pro laptop macOS to Maverics in order to bypass error 4010. I was not successful using Windows 10 Home either.
AppStore of macOS High Sierra did not offer any updates for iTunes. AppStore did not initially provide any updates for iTunes just after upgrading to Maverics was complete either. I plugged in my genuine Apple Lightning to USB cable to my iPhone 6S Plus phone while iTunes application was open on macOS Maverics. At this point iTunes gave me an information box that the iTunes application needs to download updates. I assume updates for iTunes application itself because it closed and relaunched after completing the download. There was a brief "validating with Apple" style of information on top part of the iTunes application displayed at the point of process where the error 4010 had previously jumped in.
My conclusion is that error code 4010 could also be interpreted as "Unfortunatelly you seem to be one of our customers prone to drag down the speed of information technology development. We want you to buy all of our latest models of equipment at least every second year - with happy face of course."
I would be concerned about a random Internet page, because it might have been a hacked copy that contains spyware or viruses. The right page to download it from is , and you are correct, the version in the Microsoft store does not include the iPhone drivers. It is only for managing music in Windows.
Disabling my firewall and Defender AntiVirus was also not solving the problem for me. I was about to give up and decided to uninstall the iTunes Windows 10 Store App (through Add or Remove Programs) and downloaded and installed iTunes for Windows available from the Apple - Support - Downloads page: _NL/downloads/itunes
I have done everything listed in the replies. I have made sure and used the right cable. Itunes is up to date as well as windows. Firewall and antivirus are disabled and yet it is still stuck on preparing iphone. It is in DTU mode as i type this plugged into my laptop stuck on the preparing screen. Does anybody have any idea what is going on?
I was having this problem while attempting to restore a prehistoric iPad 2 on Windows 10 pro. Due to this thread I tried turning off my private and public firewalls, to no avail. It did eventually work when I turned off domain firewall, private and public firewall, real-time and cloud-delivered antivirus protection. I'm unsure which of those additional three did the trick, but it did work.
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