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Help! My IPad Air 2 is not working

LuciaMew

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I was reading some books as usually. Then, I pressed the lock button to lock the screen when my parents went to check on me. When I tried to turn it on again, nothing happened. I tried all the methods I know: the 10 sec pressing home and lock screen button, the recovery trick. When I connected my iPad to iTunes, Itune said my iPad is in recovery mode, but the iPad screen is completely black. It told me to recovery IPad back to factory setting but I am afraid I might lose all my date or it won't work. I stored so many thing in my iPad:| some of them are very important to me. Can anyone please help me with this? My iPad is out of warranty a year ago;(
 
Do you live near an apple store by chance? idk where you live but here they'll attempt to troubleshoot or repair even if you don't have warranty, worth a shot maybe
 
do you have your stuff saved to icloud?? i think all your ibooks, photos, apps, etc automatically back up unless you change it in your settings. if you know for sure it's backed up you should be safe when you restore it!
 
Have you tried turning it off and back on again? :p

Since you can't take the battery out of an iPad, um... try draining the battery... somehow? :s
 
As Heyden said, going to the apple store and asking for help is well worth the trip if one is at all reachable for you. I've had my out-of-warrenty by 3-4 months ipad replaced after it suddenly died with no warning and absolutely no previous issues. We were expecting to have to buy a new one and *maybe* get a discount. Instead, the staff member talked to their manager and got approval to give me a brand new one for free instead.

My friend's ipad (actually, it was given to their 2 year old daughter because the grandparent is a ****ing moron..). When the daughter was 4 or 5, literally the week of the birthday, the ipad died. It was a year and 2 months out of warrenty, and after checking it and finding the fault was not caused by anything the family did, apple gave them a factory-refurbished ipad for no charge.

Now, there are some of very very important things to keep in mind when talking to apple :
- Make an appointment online first, so you don't have to hope someone can see you as a walk-in. In my country the appointment is made for the "genius bar" and a search for that is all I need to get the right link.

- BE POLITE AND AS HELPFUL AND REASONABLE AND NICE AS POSSIBLE. I cannot overstate how crucial this is. Apple staff have the most lee-way I've ever found in a major business, which means they *can* help you more than any other electronics company. Whether they *do* or not will depend on the exact issue, the staff, and on how you conduct yourself.

- Take someone with you as a support person who can help you carry your stuff + explain things if you can (make sure they know the details and are calm and polite themselves if possible!).

- Have as much information ready when you walk in as you can - what the problem is, what you've tried, what happened then, any repairs or issues you've had done previously, receipts, etc. Be prepared to have most of the information go unused as often the staf simply don't need to know all that. But having it ready helps *you* be calm and prepared, shows *them* you take this process seriously, and will save a lot of hassle if any of it is helpful in getting things resolved.

---

That all said, there are still a couple of things to try for your ipad. You can absolutely take it into a store without trying these things, but if one is hard or impossible to get to then you still have options.

1. Make sure you have a proper ipad cable + plug (not ones made for iPhones as ipads draw more power, and definitely not any cheapie brands - you need a reliable brand just to make sure the ipad is getting the power it needs). Plug in the ipad and leave it like that for around a week. You can do the next step every day or so, but I suggest you keep it plugged in for the whole week at the least. My sister got an ipad 2 from a friend and found it wouldn't turn on, despite having worked before it was given to her. After much fussing around with cheap cables, we finally got it plugged into an apple-branded cable + plug and after a full week of sitting there unresponsive, it finally just worked one time we tried step 2.

2. Hold down the power + home buttons for AT LEAST A MINUTE. This is kind of a reverse "hard kill" thing, and if your ipad is there at all, this will get it back. It may take a dozen attempts, but if you're pesistant, it will happen if there's anything there.

Serious, final step if nothing else works - this is a COMPLETE FACTORY RESET, so use with caution :

3. Google "ipad DFU" and follow the steps outlined. This will only work of you have iTunes installed, but so long as you have that, you'll be fine.

Good luck and I hope you get your ipad back and working.
 
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Do you live near an apple store by chance? idk where you live but here they'll attempt to troubleshoot or repair even if you don't have warranty, worth a shot maybe

I live in US :( But this is the very first time that this thing happen to me :(

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Have you tried turning it off and back on again? :p

Since you can't take the battery out of an iPad, um... try draining the battery... somehow? :s
I did try to hard-restart it but there is no responses :(

- - - Post Merge - - -

As Heyden said, going to the apple store and asking for help is well worth the trip if one is at all reachable for you. I've had my out-of-warrenty by 3-4 months ipad replaced after it suddenly died with no warning and absolutely no previous issues. We were expecting to have to buy a new one and *maybe* get a discount. Instead, the staff member talked to their manager and got approval to give me a brand new one for free instead.

My friend's ipad (actually, it was given to their 2 year old daughter because the grandparent is a ****ing moron..). When the daughter was 4 or 5, literally the week of the birthday, the ipad died. It was a year and 2 months out of warrenty, and after checking it and finding the fault was not caused by anything the family did, apple gave them a factory-refurbished ipad for no charge.

Now, there are some of very very important things to keep in mind when talking to apple :
- Make an appointment online first, so you don't have to hope someone can see you as a walk-in. In my country the appointment is made for the "genius bar" and a search for that is all I need to get the right link.

- BE POLITE AND AS HELPFUL AND REASONABLE AND NICE AS POSSIBLE. I cannot overstate how crucial this is. Apple staff have the most lee-way I've ever found in a major business, which means they *can* help you more than any other electronics company. Whether they *do* or not will depend on the exact issue, the staff, and on how you conduct yourself.

- Take someone with you as a support person who can help you carry your stuff + explain things if you can (make sure they know the details and are calm and polite themselves if possible!).

- Have as much information ready when you walk in as you can - what the problem is, what you've tried, what happened then, any repairs or issues you've had done previously, receipts, etc. Be prepared to have most of the information go unused as often the staf simply don't need to know all that. But having it ready helps *you* be calm and prepared, shows *them* you take this process seriously, and will save a lot of hassle if any of it is helpful in getting things resolved.

---

That all said, there are still a couple of things to try for your ipad. You can absolutely take it into a store without trying these things, but if one is hard or impossible to get to then you still have options.

1. Make sure you have a proper ipad cable + plug (not ones made for iPhones as ipads draw more power, and definitely not any cheapie brands - you need a reliable brand just to make sure the ipad is getting the power it needs). Plug in the ipad and leave it like that for around a week. You can do the next step every day or so, but I suggest you keep it plugged in for the whole week at the least. My sister got an ipad 2 from a friend and found it wouldn't turn on, despite having worked before it was given to her. After much fussing around with cheap cables, we finally got it plugged into an apple-branded cable + plug and after a full week of sitting there unresponsive, it finally just worked one time we tried step 2.

2. Hold down the power + home buttons for AT LEAST A MINUTE. This is kind of a reverse "hard kill" thing, and if your ipad is there at all, this will get it back. It may take a dozen attempts, but if you're pesistant, it will happen if there's anything there.

Serious, final step if nothing else works - this is a COMPLETE FACTORY RESET, so use with caution :

3. Google "ipad DFU" and follow the steps outlined. This will only work of you have iTunes installed, but so long as you have that, you'll be fine.

Good luck and I hope you get your ipad back and working.

Thank you very much, I tried the power + home button step last night but it didn't work. My Ipad was acting very strange lately. Somehow it kept receiving the Bluetooth signal from my Apple Bluetooth keyboard even though I have turn off the signal receiving in my Ipad. As the result, the built-in keyboard in the Ipad didn't show up. When I was using chrome, sometimes the screen just rolled down by itself. I had to close it and reopen it. The screen can also be unresponsive as well. I handle my Ipad with care :( but I don't know why it dies on me T^T I store many books and works as well as picture on it :| it would be so devastating if I loose all of them :| my Macbook is not working properly lately so I can't backup on my MacBook. I did try to backup on iCloud but I don't know it works
 
I live in US :( But this is the very first time that this thing happen to me :(

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I did try to hard-restart it but there is no responses :(

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Thank you very much, I tried the power + home button step last night but it didn't work. My Ipad was acting very strange lately. Somehow it kept receiving the Bluetooth signal from my Apple Bluetooth keyboard even though I have turn off the signal receiving in my Ipad. As the result, the built-in keyboard in the Ipad didn't show up. When I was using chrome, sometimes the screen just rolled down by itself. I had to close it and reopen it. The screen can also be unresponsive as well. I handle my Ipad with care :( but I don't know why it dies on me T^T I store many books and works as well as picture on it :| it would be so devastating if I loose all of them :| my Macbook is not working properly lately so I can't backup on my MacBook. I did try to backup on iCloud but I don't know it works

If you keep trying steps 1 & 2, you might get lucky before you take it in on Friday. If not, make sure you ask apple about how much of your stuff was stored on iCloud. Depending on what you tell them, they should have a fairly accurate odea of how much of your stuff was backed up. Unfortunately, it's gone, then it's gone and there's simply no recovering it I'm afraid. :/

If apple don't offer to replace it free of charge and want you to pay a fee, ask them if doing a "DFU" (step 3) will fix the issues. I'm sure they'll suggest this or a simple factory reset (if I understood my partner correctly, they are/can be two different things - he's an IT professional and knows how such things work, but I do not and might have misunderstood). Depending on whether your ipad is "cooked" (technical term for broken beyond repair) or just malfunctoning in a way that a reset would fix, you may be able to avoid replacing the ipad + paying the fee.

That said, in case they tell you your ipad needs a reset but you can pay a replacement fee for a new/reburbished ipad : take the time now to look at your options. Were you looking to upgrade to a newer ipad in the next year or so, or keep this one for as long as it runs? If you keep your current ipad, are you able to go back easily to apple if it experiences another issue like this? Can you afford to pay the replacement fee? (Google for info in your country to find out what $ you might be looking at.) Are there any other factors that will influence your decision in this scenario?

*Hopefully* all of this will be moot and you either revive your ipad or else apple do on Friday. In eother of those cases, keep your appointment and make sure to ask them about your backup situation so that you know what is going on with that and how to check your backups yourself in the future.
 
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If you keep trying steps 1 & 2, you might get lucky before you take it in on Friday. If not, make sure you ask apple about how much of your stuff was stored on iCloud. Depending on what you tell them, they should have a fairly accurate odea of how much of your stuff was backed up. Unfortunately, it's gone, then it's gone and there's simply no recovering it I'm afraid. :/

If apple don't offer to replace it free of charge and want you to pay a fee, ask them if doing a "DFU" (step 3) will fix the issues. I'm sure they'll suggest this or a simple factory reset (if I understood my partner correctly, they are/can be two different things - he's an IT professional and knows how such things work, but I do not and might have misunderstood). Depending on whether your ipad is "cooked" (technical term for broken beyond repair) or just malfunctoning in a way that a reset would fix, you may be able to avoid replacing the ipad + paying the fee.

That said, in case they tell you your ipad needs a reset but you can pay a replacement fee for a new/reburbished ipad : take the time now to look at your options. Were you looking to upgrade to a newer ipad in the next year or so, or keep this one for as long as it runs? If you keep your current ipad, are you able to go back easily to apple if it experiences another issue like this? Can you afford to pay the replacement fee? (Google for info in your country to find out what $ you might be looking at.) Are there any other factors that will influence your decision in this scenario?

*Hopefully* all of this will be moot and you either revive your ipad or else apple do on Friday. In eother of those cases, keep your appointment and make sure to ask them about your backup situation so that you know what is going on with that and how to check your backups yourself in the future.

So I visited the Apply store today :( it was so sad. The guy at Apple tried to reset it using the recovery mode but the Ipad didn't response after a 2-3 mins of trying to recovery it. So he said that my Ipad is dead. :| I took it home and tried it again using my MacBook. In my first try, I got an error message stating that my Ipad:"The "iPad" could not be restored. This devise isn't eligible for the requested build"

I think I will try the DFU mode by myself.
 
So I visited the Apply store today :( it was so sad. The guy at Apple tried to reset it using the recovery mode but the Ipad didn't response after a 2-3 mins of trying to recovery it. So he said that my Ipad is dead. :| I took it home and tried it again using my MacBook. In my first try, I got an error message stating that my Ipad:"The "iPad" could not be restored. This devise isn't eligible for the requested build"

I think I will try the DFU mode by myself.

Ah I'm so sorry. That really sucks :(

Let me know how the DFU goes - I don't know a lot about it but my partner does, and the instructions I've seen online seem easy to follow. Hopefully it works for you!

It's a shame that you've lost all your data, but maybe more of it had been backed up than you know.
 
Ah I'm so sorry. That really sucks :(

Let me know how the DFU goes - I don't know a lot about it but my partner does, and the instructions I've seen online seem easy to follow. Hopefully it works for you!

It's a shame that you've lost all your data, but maybe more of it had been backed up than you know.

I tried for more than 10 times this evening :( nothing worked T^T Now I just hope it is not cooked :| for some reasons whenever I connect it to my iTune, the iTune can recognize the iPad is in recovery mode but it can't recognize the series number. The weird thing is that the message that I receive keep changing when there is an error, sometimes it is 4014, 4015, or 4004 :| The ipad is not responding to it I believe. I don't know if this has anything to do with the full storage issue.

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Thank you so much for your help :( hopefully it won't let me down
 
sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you will most likely need to restore your iPad, which means losing any data that's currently on it. you can try to bring it to the apple store, but they'll have you restore it. hopefully you have some of the stuff backed up to your iCloud, it does it automatically if you've set it up, but it only has a few gigs of space unless you've paid to upgrade it - so depending on how much stuff you have stored on your iPad, it may have been backed up recently

you can actually chat with apple support online and they can check if you have an iCloud backup and when the last time the iPad was backed up
 
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sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you will most likely need to restore your iPad, which means losing any data that's currently on it. you can try to bring it to the apple store, but they'll have you restore it. hopefully you have some of the stuff backed up to your iCloud, it does it automatically if you've set it up, but it only has a few gigs of space unless you've paid to upgrade it - so depending on how much stuff you have stored on your iPad, it may have been backed up recently

you can actually chat with apple support online and they can check if you have an iCloud backup and when the last time the iPad was backed up

I did :( but they suggest me to pay 299$ for the replacement, which is so sadT^T
 
I did :( but they suggest me to pay 299$ for the replacement, which is so sadT^T

Darn. How much for a new ipad where you are? If you can't resucitate your current one you'll need to do the maths and see what your options are.

But I'm still hopeful for you!
 
Darn. How much for a new ipad where you are? If you can't resucitate your current one you'll need to do the maths and see what your options are.

But I'm still hopeful for you!
It is around 350 I believe. The strange thing is that when I told them about whether I should get new iPad or replace my iPad with another iPad Air 2, the guy told me that there is only new iPhone. I had to show him the new iPad on apple website. He asked his colleagues, and his colleagues said it was not an upgrade for iPad Air 2 but a downgrade :| I was completely lost. I thought the new iPad has a newer generation chip. Then that guy google search something's and said it is an upgrade. But I wonder if they know what they are doing :|
 
I did :( but they suggest me to pay 299$ for the replacement, which is so sadT^T

aww that's a bummer, so it sounds like they couldn't restore it either. the new ipad is $329 so it would be worth it to get that instead

also if you bought the ipad air 2 with an amex cc, amex gives you an extra year of warranty so they'll pay for the replacement if you file a claim
 
aww that's a bummer, so it sounds like they couldn't restore it either. the new ipad is $329 so it would be worth it to get that instead

also if you bought the ipad air 2 with an amex cc, amex gives you an extra year of warranty so they'll pay for the replacement if you file a claim

I know T^*** is so sad. 299 is not a small amount of money >.< My visit at Apple Store yesterday was really weird. People there seem like they have no clue of what the company is currently doing or offering to the market. The technician didn't know that there will be a new iPad coming out, his colleague's opinion on the new iPad is contradicted with the company advertisement for the new iPad. The diagnostic process took less than 5 mins, and I had to wait for like haft of an hour even though I was on time for my appointment.
Thank you very much for your suggestion, I am constantly trying to recover it through recovery mode but so far it is not working at all :(
 
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