[iMore Question]

I've hit a very specific issue with my older iPhone 4S running iOS 7.1.2.
I was doing some App Store updates during the last weekend and as my 32GB space was almost full (300MB free) the app update process failed. After canceling the app update process I realized there is barely no free space left (5 MB free).

I probably made a mistake when I didn't immediately clean up some space by deleting apps or some other content. Instead I just switched the iPhone off and tried to restart it to let the iOS do some cleanup of temporary space and update caches etc. But from that moment it got stuck in the boot loop when it shows only the white Apple logo over and over again.

I already tried to do some resetting following the procedure with Home and Power/Sleep buttons that I found on the internet but it really didn’t help. I was also able to switch the iPhone to Recovery mode with plugging it to my MacBook Pro via USB and holding Home button. However I didn’t yet try to do iOS Restore yet it as I don't have full backup of all the data. I do have some partial iCloud backup of data but unfortunately but it does not include all the photos from the Camera Roll which would take quite a lot of the iCloud space that I had to use for other backups of my iOS devices. But now I’m really banging my head that I didn’t make at least manual backups of ALL data via iTunes so that I could easily restore it via Recovery mode.

I thought iOS 7 really got that problem to boot because of very low empty space left after App Store updates.
So my question is if there is ANY way how I could make my iPhone 4S boot to iOS so that I could make a backup?
Is it possible to do some reset of iOS without losing any data?
I've read about some other DFU mode which is used to update the iOS without wiping any data.
Could it somehow help me to resolve this?

[kch50428]

If you've been regularly backing up your phone and syncing to iCloud and/or iTunes - that has you covered.

[Just_Me_D]

Login to iCloud via a computer and see if your photos are present. If they are, great. You can go ahead and use iTunes to restore and update your iPhone 4S. That's the only way you're going to get it up and running. If the photos are not present via iCloud, and you haven't made a recent backup containing the photos, more than likely the photos will be lost. Having said that, if those photos were in your photo stream, it's possible that they will sync back to your phone after you've got it restored and have configured iCloud with it.

[mikeo007]

DFU mode doesn't load the OS, so you're not going to have access to anything on the phone.
Is this a jailbroken device? I've never heard of the boot loops happening on stock devices.

[lharp]

DFU mode doesn't load the OS, so you're not going to have access to anything on the phone.
Is this a jailbroken device? I've never heard of the boot loops happening on stock devices.

No, it was never jailbroken before..
I understand that DFU mode does not load iOS.
So is it possible to repair the iOS 7 somehow in DFU mode so that it boots again?
Or could some jailbreak in DFU mode make the iOS boot?
Is there any way how could I make it boot again so that I could access the photos?
I found out that iTunes offers to do the iPhone update to the latest iOS 8 when I put iPhone into Recovery mode. But I did not try it as I suppose it it will fail due to low free space on the iPhone.
Or do you think I should try it?

[Just_Me_D]

No, it was never jailbroken before..
I understand that DFU mode does not load iOS.
So is it possible to repair the iOS 7 somehow in DFU mode so that it boots again?
Or could some jailbreak in DFU mode make the iOS boot?
Is there any way how could I make it boot again so that I could access the photos?
I found out that iTunes offers to do the iPhone update to the latest iOS 8 when I put iPhone into Recovery mode. But I did not try it as I suppose it it will fail due to low free space on the iPhone.
Or do you think I should try it?

Whether from DFU mode or Recovery mode, you will lose all data on the device when you restore and update it via iTunes. The low free space will not have any effect. Your photos will be lost, but you will be able to get your device up and running.

[mikeo007]

You could try a utility like iFunbox to see if you can access the files on your phone while it's in a boot loop. But other than that, I can't see a way to resolve the problem and keep your files intact. Using DFU mode to install or re-install iOS will wipe your user data before it installs the OS.