Use a high-quality "Charge and Sync" cable. Some cheap cables only carry power, not data.
If iTunes is not recognizing your device in DFU mode, you likely need to manually update the driver through the Windows Device Manager. Here is the definitive step-by-step process. apple recovery -dfu- usb driver
This is radical surgery. Because the operating system is not running, the standard USB communication protocols (like the Apple Mobile Device Service’s higher-level commands) are irrelevant. Instead, the device presents itself to the host computer as a —specifically, a DFU device with a specific Vendor ID (VID: 05AC for Apple) and Product ID (PID: 1227 for older devices or 1222 for newer ARM64 chips). In this state, the iPhone is no longer a "phone"; it is a blank slate awaiting a bootloader and firmware via Apple Restore (iBEC, iBSS). For a Mac, this transition is native. For Windows, it is a disaster waiting to happen. Use a high-quality "Charge and Sync" cable
When users search for "Apple recovery -dfu- usb driver," they are usually experiencing the or "Error 4013/4014" in iTunes/Finder. Let’s demystify the drivers involved. Here is the definitive step-by-step process
When you connect a functioning iPhone to a Windows PC, the system assigns it a standard Portable Device driver. However, when an iPhone enters DFU mode, the USB controller changes its endpoint identification.