Many iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Windows users are reporting that they have been receiving an error message saying “A device attached to the system is not functioning” (see the image below).
This error message occurs because your computer is not properly communicating with your iOS device. This could be because of many reasons, for example:
- Your iPhone or iPad is not connected to your computer properly
- Your computer’s USB port may not be working
- Your USB cable may not be working
You may see this error when you attempt to copy and transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Windows PC. This short article explains what you can do to fix this problem.
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- Reconnect your iPhone to iPad to your computer. Try a different USB port. Try a different USB cable.
- Restart your computer and your iOS device. You can turn off your iOS device by going to Settings > General > Shut Down. Then you can restart. Restart your PC also.
- On your iOS device, go to Settings > Photos and scroll down, find the “transfer to Mac or pc” section. And select “Keep Originals”.
- On your computer, switch between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports.
- Update iTunes to the latest version on your PC. There are two ways to do this depending on your initial installation. If you downloaded iTunes from Apple’s web site, in iTunes, choose Help > Check for Updates. If you downloaded iTunes from Microsoft Store, on your computer, go to Start > Microsoft Store > More… > Download and Updates.
See also: How To Transfer Photos & Videos From iPhone & iPad To Computer (Mac or Windows)
I am the king of the problem. I want the original .MOV files which are much larger and much better quality. I have to literally turn the phone off/on several times before I can copy files over 1G in size. I even opened a ticket with Apple and took weeks for someone to back to me a try and setup a logging system to capture the error..But that never happened either…
I do believe it is related to the amount of storage you have used up….
I ended up buying a second iPhone 8 with 64G of storage when I go out to shoot concerts and what ever else….My actual iPhone 8 with 264G when it gets over 200G is useless…
Believe me if there was a pattern, sequence, way to reproduce what to do to get large videos to copy I would have found it…
It comes down to 1 fact:
There is a HUGE bug in Apples IOS since they started using HEIC format, and they will not admit it, look into it, or even try to find a solution because their solution is like everyone else has stated here, set your phone to “keep original”…. Not the answer for me or many others.
**SOLUTION** The solution is in the cameras settings. It is switched to save as HEIC and you can switch it back to saving as JPEGS. The only issue with that is that the JPEGS take up more room in the iPhone memory but it does resolve the issue.
From a compatible iOS Device running iOS 11 or later, launch Settings and select Camera.
Select Formats.
Change your iPhone camera format to Most Compatible. This will automatically save pictures as JPEG files and videos in the H264 format.
I had to use a usb port on the back of my PC for it to work.
Thanks a lot. It was easy as 3. step but I can not solve this on my own.
Perfect it also worked for me. It seams like a problem on the phone with the real time conversion when copying from iphone to PC.
Thanks
This helped me a lot to transfer photos from my Iphone to windows PC.
After continuous research for 2 nights, I could successfully transfer the photos. Heartfelt thanks to the person who has given this resolution!
Super!!!!! I can copy my files now!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!
Worked like a charm when you check ‘keep originals’
This first comment about running settings>photos>transfer to mac or pc>keep originals did the trick. TRY THIS FIRST. So frustrating, I tried all the other suggestions by my own intuition before I hit this site. Thank you!
Amazing thank you so much! You have saved me putting my iPhone in the bin!!!!
Keep Originals worked for me. Thanks, this was so frustrating with such a simple fix.
THANKS YOU DUDE!!! ‘Keep originals’ solution works like a charm!
I’m having this issue with video downloads. I can pull the .jpg’s with no real issue. Virtually all of my videos fail when trying to pull from my iPhone 8 256GB to my Win 7 PC. Will try on my Win 10 and see how that goes….
Hi
I got an Iphone 8 Plus and I ve been trying desperately to transfer all the videos/pictures ( around 39GB ) to my Windows 7 on my laptop . Via Itunes, it seems that it transferred only 36 GB to the PC and when I do it manually (copy paste ) the DCIM folder or even individually each folder ( 100APPLE, 101APPLE etc etc ), it copies only some of the files but not completely. PLEASE tell me what I am doing wrong as I need to backup all the media and the video recordings to the laptop as I need to sell the phone asap.
Thank you
i was able to transfer some by individually selecting each data type at a time, its a pain the ass but i have too many photos to take a risk of not getting them on my PC WITHOUT hours on hours of research.
Thanks!! ‘Keep originals’ solution works great!!