[Stephanie]

I woke up around 2am last night and noticed that my iPad, on the bedside table, was stuck in some kind of reboot loop. The screen showed the apple logo for a while, then the apple logo would disappear (leaving the screen black but the backlight on). Then the backlight would go off. Then after a few seconds the backlight would come back on, the apple logo would appear, and the cycle would repeat. I don't know how long it was doing that - it was working ok when I had put it to sleep around 11pm.

So I tried holding the power button but that didn't work. So I tried the hard reset (power + home button) and that got it into recovery mode. I tried using iTunes to recover it, and it would get as far as showing the empty status bar on the iPad and iTunes would say 'waiting for iPad'. Then the ipad screen and backlight would switch off, iTunes would say "could not restore, error 9" and then the iPad would come back on in recovery mode again.

I did this over and over about a half dozen times. I tried putting the iPad into DFU mode, and it would go into DFU mode, but as soon as I tried to restore again it'd fail at the same poing - showing the empty status bar then seeming to switch off or reset before anything could be loaded.

Error 9 is apparently a USB error, indicating that the USB communication was lost during the restore - I have tried with two different dock cables (both original Apple cables) just incase, but what I am seeing is that the USB connection is getting interrupted because the iPad is cutting out and rebooting during the restore.

I have also attempted to restore using XCode, which does not give the error 9, but when the iPad resets during the restore, XCode just sits there waiting indefinately, while in the background it recognizes 'another ipad' has been connected.

It is an iPad 2 which I bought shortly after they were released, so it's over a year old, no warranty or Applecare. I'm a developer and it was running the latest iOS 6 beta. I have attempted to restore it both to the beta, and to the current version of iOS but it fails with the same symptoms at the same moment so I don't think it is a problem with the beta.

Fortunately it's not a mission-critical device, I wouldn't have been running the beta if it was... but I will certainly miss it if it's well and truly dead.

I'm going to take it to work on the off chance that I can restore it from my iMac there. (Maybe it really is a USB problem with my iMac at home?)

If anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!

-Stephanie

 

[Stephanie]

Well trying it at work had the same result - the progress bar would appear on the iPad then the screen would flash to black and then it would go back into Restore mode, and iTunes says it cannot restore with error 9.

So I tried using XCode here at work, and this time at least I'm getting a bit more information. Doing the restore through XCode it flashes little messages on the iMac saying what it's doing, and it fails at "Waiting for NAND" - while XCode shows 'waiting for NAND' the iPad has that empty status bar under the apple icon, then the screen flashes to black then it goes back to restore mode.

And XCode is now showing me a new error, after the iPad goes back to restore mode: "ERROR: Waiting for NAND: Communication error"

I don't know if that means the iPad's flash memory is toast, or just that it's at that particular stage when the USB connection fails...

Sad mac.

 

[ehMax]

You took all the right steps, and with those unsuccessful, it might not be good news as it usually points to hardware problems on the logic board, often a bad flash memory module or a board level circuit.

Lots of reports of trying to replace the dock-connector / flex cable and that not fixing the problem unfortunately.

 

[Stephanie]

Thanks for the feedback.. That's what I was thinking, the symptoms are remeniscent of a computer who's hard drive has expired.

It wants to boot but it can't boot; it wants to reload the OS but it can't reload the OS.

Poor, poor iPad...

Still, I've been an Apple customer since around 1998 and this is the first time I've had an Apple device actually up and die on me. (Well the first time that it wasn't easily fixable that is.)

 

[HenriHelvetica]

Sad to hear all of that. I've had two issues only - 1nce I had a 12" PB go on me, but it still had 6 months left on extended AC, so it was kindly replaced by Apple YRKDL with a shiny new matte black macbook (they had just come out back then). I still have the MB to this day.
Oddly, I bought a second MB that went after 4-5 yrs. The motherboard kicked it. And this was the one that i took very great care of. Go figure.
I'm all about Apple Care. With everything being portable now, the oddest knock I feel can mess these devices up. I like to know I can walk into a shop and have something fixed asap. After 3 yrs though, once a/c has passed, I can't complain. I figure that I got $1/day's worth out of it.

Good luck.

 

[Stephanie]

Thanks I'm seriously considering applecare this time around. It's just too frustrating, especially when they make these things essentially unrepairable. (At least, unrepairable by us mere mortals.)

My 2009 iMac had the harddrive fail literally days after the warranty had expired. I was able to pry the front panel glass off, remove the LCD panel, and replace the hard drive myself. It's been running pretty good ever since. (Not perfectly, as the DVD drive has recently failed, but I rarely used that.) And I have an original Airport Base Station that died after a few years, but all it took was replacing a pair of electrolytic capacitors and the ABS went on working. I think we got almost a full decade out of it, and even then we only replaced it to get faster wi-fi.

With those experiences, it's so frustrating staring at this iPad with no screws, almost no seams, and knowing even if I did get it open there's virtually nothing I can do anyways.

Now I'm reading rumours that the 'new ipad' might get a small mid-cycle revision which makes me want to hold off another week or two, but it's very frustrating. All the places I used to use the iPad now I have to rely on either my iPhone (squinting at the little screen) or a netbook which... after the ipad, it just isn't fun any more.

Ah well. First world problems!

 

[pm-r]

Is there any difference using the suggested method, and excuse my ignorance not knowing of the difference of the various iPad buttons ie: sleep and power buttons:

"Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons."

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4108270?start=0&tstart=0

 

[Stephanie]

Is there any difference using the suggested method, and excuse my ignorance not knowing of the difference of the various iPad buttons ie: sleep and power buttons:

"Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons."

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4108270?start=0&tstart=0

The sleep button is the same as the power button. Maybe 'sleep button' is the correct name for it.

Thanks though!

 

[SINC]

Not sure from the thread if everyone knows what has been suggested, this for clarification.

Here is a pic of what he was suggesting. The power button is at top right by the index finger, the home button is at centre bottom. Hold both at the same time until the iPad shuts down, wait a few seconds and try to power it up again.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

you might want to check into your credit card and see if it offers any additional warranty.

 

[G-Mo]

Get an out of warranty replacement for $249 (your local AASP may have for cheaper).

The official names for the buttons mentioned above are "Home" and "Sleep/Wake".