Locked iPad - help!

[SpuffMonkey]

I'm not an avid fan of Apple products and don't use them myself, but was asked for some help today by an old lady I play bridge with.

 

She has an iPad and got confused when trying to connect to her wifi and entered the wrong password several times resulting in a lockdown.

 

She's never connected it to anything else (ie iTunes or a PC) and Apple tell her that there's no way back except a wipe and return to factory settings - is that really true?

 

Mostly she doesn't care - but she has only recently returned from her dream cruise of a lifetime and all her photos were taken on it and she'd REALLY like them back.

 

If it is true that there's no way to retrieve her data - is there a recommendation on how to act with an iPad if you don't also own a desktop of some kind to sync with - or is it just one of those Apple "things"?

[willtech]

Not sure if this helps http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1212

[rad]

This worked for me. I ended up resetting the password for the itunes account and got in that way.

 

If you have never synced your device with iTunes, or you do not have access to a computer

 

If you see one of following alerts, you need to erase the device:

 

"iTunes could not connect to the [device] because it is locked with a passcode. You must enter your passcode on the [device] before it can be used with iTunes."

"You haven't chosen to have [device] trust this computer"

 

If you have Find My iPhone enabled, you can use Remote Wipe to erase the contents of your device. If you have been using iCloud to back up, you may be able to restore the most recent backup to reset the passcode after the device has been erased.

 

Alternatively, place the device in recovery mode and restore it to erase the device:

 

Disconnect the USB cable from the device, but leave the other end of the cable connected to your computer's USB port.

Turn off the device: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until the red slider appears, then slide the slider. Wait for the device to shut down.

While pressing and holding the Home button, reconnect the USB cable to the device. The device should turn on.

Continue holding the Home button until you see the Connect to iTunes screen.

iTunes will alert you that it has detected a device in recovery mode. Click OK, and then restore the device.

[SpuffMonkey]

This worked for me. I ended up resetting the password for the itunes account and got in that way.

 

Does that not say that she has to erase all her data though? Which was what she was trying to avoid...

[synaesthesia]

Would Copytrans manage to copy anything over?

[SpuffMonkey]

Would Copytrans manage to copy anything over?

 

Dunno - I'll google it up

[mac_shinobi]

Few things I found so far are ( not sure if any will work ) Maybe @seawolf @Arthur

 

Or someone else can give better suggestions

 

1) Using DFU Mode and software to recover the data - Wondering if you go to computer management --> disk management --> will the ipad show up as an additional memory or drive without an assigned drive letter that you could possibly right click on and explore although if the ipad was setup by itself just wondering if you may need 3rd party software so windows understands the filing system which may be a mac type FS ie hfs / hfs+ or similar ??

 

http://www.transfer-iphone-recovery.com/iphone-backup.html

 

2) https://discussions.apple.com/message/24220036#24220036

 

Found this from site in relation to jail broken iphones but links to a few utils so not sure if they will be of any use

 

http://www.jailbreakqa.com/questions/48198/how-to-copy-files-in-dfu-mode-or-recovery-mode

 

Quote from site ( am guessing this option won't work as it's never been synced with any other device / computer previously )

 

‘iPad is disabled’ fix without resetting using iTunes

 

Today I met my match with an iPad that had a passcode entered too many times, resulting in it displaying the message ‘iPad is disabled – Connect to iTunes’. This was a student iPad and since they use Notability for most of their work there was a chance that her files were not all backed up to the cloud. I really wanted to just re-activate the iPad instead of totally resetting it back to our default image.

I reached out to my PLN on Twitter and had some help from a few people through retweets and a couple of clarification tweets. I love that so many are willing to help out so quickly. Through this I also learned that I look like Lt. Riker from Star Trek (thanks @fillineMachine).

Through some trial and error (and a little sheer luck), I was able to reactivate the iPad without loosing any data. Note, this will only work on the computer it last synced with. Here’s how:

1. Configurator is useless in reactivating a locked iPad. You will only be able to completely reformat the iPad using Configurator. If that’s ok with you, go for it – otherwise don’t waste your time trying to figure it out.

2. Open iTunes with the iPad disconnected.

3. Connect the iPad to the computer and wait for it to show up in the devices section in iTunes.

4. Click on the iPad name when it appears and you will be given the option to restore a backup or setup as a new iPad (since it is locked).

5. Click ‘Setup as new iPad’ and then click restore.

6. The iPad will start backing up before it does the full restore and sync. CANCEL THE BACKUP IMMEDIATELY. You do this by clicking the small x in the status window in iTunes.

7. When the backup cancels, it immediately starts syncing – cancel this as well using the same small x in the iTunes status window.

8. The first stage in the restore process unlocks the iPad, you are basically just cancelling out the restore process as soon as it reactivates the iPad.

 

If done correctly, you will experience no data loss and the result will be a reactivated iPad. I have now tried this with about 5 iPads that were locked identically by students and each time it worked like a charm.

Edited March 29, 2014 by mac_shinobi