Last night I was messing with iTunes to try and get some extra songs onto my phone when everything stopped working. For some reason, Windows 10 stopped recognizing my iPhone as a device. It no longer showed up in Explorer and even in devices//devices manager any mention of my iPhone disappeared.
I tried different cables to no avail. It IS recognized on other computers though.
I uninstalled iTunes and all Apple software then reinstalled iTunes - no fix.
I tried disabling and restarting the Apple Mobile services. Nothing.
The Apple USB driver is nowhere to be found in the Device Manager yet is present on my hard drive in the appropriate folder. I tried installing the driver manually but it did not change anything even after multiple reboots.
Other USB devices are recognized with no problem.
I asked on Apple who referred me back to you as it is a Windows issue.
Also, when plugged into my computer, the disc activity light flashes as if the computer is trying to read or find a new device but cannot. And when I manually force Windows to find a new device, it finds a bar code/QR code reader app on my phone which it wishes
to add as a video device! Clearly Windows KNOWS something is plugged into the computer but cannot figure out what.
Also, it does not give me any mentions of unspecified devices nor do I have any unspecified portable devices. Even if I allow hidden devices to appear in devices/device manager. Actually, that's not true. There WERE hidden (inactive) iPhone icons but I removed
them in hopes of getting my computer to once again recognize the device - sort of like uninstalling/reinstalling.