Home button doesn't work, can't "Press home to continue"

[Z33Z00]

I dropped my iPhone 8 in a pool a few years ago and opened it up and dried/cleaned the insides as best as I could after I fished it out. It still turns on but the home button doesn't respond to my taptic touch nor unlock with my fingerprint. So I decided to factory reset the phone and after a long back-and-forth with Apple verifying that it indeed is my phone that I am trying to reset, I finally got it wiped and reset back to how it comes in the box.

The problem is it prompts me to "Press home button to continue" when setting up the phone, basically back to square 1...

Rather than opening up the phone again and possibly doing more harm than good to the already fragile cables and pins, I wanted to ask if there was a program I could run that would mirror the iPhone via USB onto my computer that would also have a button I could click with a mouse to bypass the physical home button on the phone. Most of the programs I've come across require something to be installed on the phone, like Cydia, prior to getting this to work but I don't really have that option.

I'd appreciate any recommendations if anyone knows what I'm talking about or advice on whether to simply buy a new home button and replace it (could be a connection issue or something else).

 

[J. A.]

Does Assistive Touch work on your device? It adds a virtual Home button to your iPhone’s screen. Depending on your software, go to Settings - Accessibility, scroll down to General, select Accessibility Shortcuts and mark AssistiveTouch.

 

[Z33Z00]

Assistive Touch isn't the issue, the home button doesn't allow me to set up the phone after it's been factory reset because the very first thing it asks you to do when you take the phone out of the box is "Press the home button to continue" and that's where the issue lies.

I'm asking if there is a way I can connect the iPhone via USB to my computer and run a program that can show the iPhone on my screen and I can manipulate the buttons via a separate program.

 

[willerz2]

Short of fixing the hardware problems, no. Even if you were to mirror the phone to your computer and control it from there, you'll need to be on the home screen to accept the connecting PC as a trusted device.