Does a Hard Reset Erase Everything on iPhone? Answered!

iPhone is one of the best smartphones. With the A chip and iOS system, even some old iPhone models can work well for years. But sometimes, you may also encounter some problems. especially when you upgrade to the latest iOS. To fix an iPhone issue, a hard reset would be very useful in most cases, but you need to know how it works on your iPhone if you worry about whether it would cause data loss.

The following sections would answer your question does a hard reset erase everything on iPhone 15/14 and tells you other ways to reset your iPhone without harming your data.

Section 1. Does hard reset erase everything on iPhone?

First of all, let's figure out what is a hard reset is on an iPhone. Usually, when we hard reset an iPhone is to restart the iPhone and refresh the memory in which the apps run. We often use this feature to solve iPhone freezes or other system glitches like iPhone keeps restarting. It is just like force restart your iPhone without losing any data.

But sometimes, some users refer to the reset their iPhones to factory settings. In this case, that will completely erase all personal data and restore all settings to the factory settings. But no no matter what you want to do, make a backup is necessary.

Section 2. How to hard reset iPhone

Here we guide you on how to make a hard reset to an iPhone. We will show the steps of force restart and factory reset an iPhone to factory settings. Before we start, please backup the iPhone in case of any expected problem or incorrect operation.

1. Force restart iPhone

Apple has been changing the appearance of iPhone during these years. The positions of the buttons are also been changed. For different iPhone, there are different ways to force restart them.

For iPhone 8 and later:

1. You need to press the Volume + button for just a second and then quickly release it.

2. Also press the Volume – button for a second and quickly release it.

3. Press and hold the power button for a few seconds. You will see the Apple logo then and iPhone will be restarted.

For iPhone 7/7Plus:

You need to press and hold the power button and Volume – button at the same time for a few seconds. Wait for the Apple logo appearing and your iPhone will be restarted soon.

For iPhone 6S/6/5S/5C/5/4s/4:

You need to press and hold the home and side button at the same time for a few seconds. Wait for the Apple logo appearing and your iPhone will be restarted soon.

2. Reset all content and settings on iPhone

In some cases, simply restart your iPhone can't help you, you can erase all settings and data to restore your iPhone to factory settings, make sure you have backup your iPhone, and follow the steps below.

1. Go to the "Settings" app on your iPhone.

2. Tap "General" > "Reset" > "Erase All Content and Settings".

Section 3. The differences among soft, hard, and factory resetting

Soft reset means simply holding and pressing the power button, dragging the slider to turn off iPhone, and then holding and pressing the power button to restart your iPhone. It is very safe for your iPhone data because it causes no harm and won’t delete anything on iPhone. Soft restart could also be used to fix some system issues like iCloud backup stuck and close programs running in the background.

Hard reset is the upgraded soft reset. It could do everything that soft reset does. The biggest difference is that hard reset could force stop any application that makes iPhone stuck or behaves abnormally.

Factory reset means deleting everything on the iPhone to return iPhone to the status when it is manufactured in factory. iPhone would be activated again when it is connected to the Internet. This is often used to clear iPhone to sell it to another one or completely erase iPhone to delete other storage on iPhone.

Section 4. How to reset iPhone without a passcode

What should you do when you forget the passcode of iPhone or it is disabled? You could totally reset iPhone on computer, but this could erase everything on your iPhone. You should think twice before you do that. Again, to protect your data, regular backup plan is the best way. You can easily backup iPhone to computer.

1. Download and run the latest iTunes to computer.

2. Connect your iPhone to computer with a USB cable.

3. Use the method of hard resetting iPhone until you see the prompt in iTunes.

4. Click Restore to completely reset iPhone.

Section 5. How to reset iPhone without losing important data

Sometimes you do need to factory reset iPhone but there are a lot of useful data like photos, videos, music, contacts, and messages on iPhone. Before erasing your iPhone, you should save them to computer.

FoneTool is very professional software that could help you easily backup and erase iPhone. You can select the data to save and then safely remove iPhone data.

Step 1. Download and install FoneTool. Connect iPhone to computer with USB cable.

Step 2. Click Phone Backup > Choose Selective Backup on the home screen.

Step 3. Click the icons to view every item on iPhone > Select the iPhone data you want to save and click OK.

Step 4. Click Start Backup to quickly save them to computer.

Step 5. Click Toolbox from the left pane > Choose Data Eraser.

Step 6. Choose Erase all data in this dialogue.

Step 7. Check the options as per your needs.

Step 8. Click Erase Data to completely reset iPhone.

Conclusion

This passage gives you the answer to the question does a hard reset erase everything on iPhone. You will also know how to do soft reset and factory reset on iPhone.

What’s more, you would also know how to completely reset iPhone without a passcode and how to safely erase iPhone.