Chosen Solution
I am try to get data off an iphone 8. The owner dropped their phone and cracked the home button, afterward the phone just boot-looped. I put the phone in recovery mode and force updated. The update was going smoothly but now I am stuck at a screen that says “press home to recover”. I can’t press home though because the home button doesn’t work. I know you can’t replace the home buttons on these. Does any one know any way to force a home button press? Could I short to pins on the logicboard or something?
Ultimately I have advised the phones owner to take it to Apple. Apple had previously wanted to wipe the device because it was bootlooping. Now that I have the phone at the restore screen I think they will just replace the home button and screen. I didn’t end up trying the bluetooth work around as I didn’t want apple to refuse to work on it and soldering stuff to the device was sure to irk them. The bluetooth home button work around could still be a potential solution if someone else runs into this problem. I am skeptical about whether to phone is going to treat the “return to home” function the same way it treats a home button press from a working home button, at least at that stage of setting up the phone. Thank you to everyone who responded.
You could try this handy device: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=… it should work.
I see you are doing this for someone else and you are new to iFixit, so I would say this is beyond your capability at this stage. This is a job for a micro soldering expert. They may be able fix the home button, so that it works again, but will probably not detect fingerprints any more. Sometimes the IC Turtle chip gets dislodged from the home button flex. There is also a Bluetooth Home button work around that can be installed, it is called the JC home button, google it o find out more.
You may try a force restart to see if it works, follow the step-by-step guide: Press and hold HOME + POWER button for 10 seconds and then release the buttons. You will see that your screen turns OFF.No again press and hold HOME + POWER button again for 8 seconds until you see Apple Logo and then release the buttons after the iPhone screen turns OFF.Now again press and hold, HOME + POWER button for 20 seconds, then only release the POWER button and still hold the HOME button.After 20 seconds, release the HOME button and your iPhone X/8/8 Plus shall start in normal mode as usual. Hope this info helps you!
you could try connecting a home button from a different phone, it may then give you the on screen home button.
Replace your home button/screen.
