lost everything on ipad2 while downloading iOS5

I began downloading iOS5 by syncing through iTunes. I left the room and came back to a message on my PC which read "Karen's iPad could not be restored. Unknown error occurred." I have tried to restart my iPad but all I get is the picture of a USB connection and the iTunes icon. I assume everything is lost.

Other than cry, what do I do? By the way, I do not have a smart phone and I am 65 years old. I have been losing all of my contacts when entering any contacts manually--a separate problem, I know--but Apple was supposed to work seamlessly.

Please help.

For Pete's sake, don't cry. I don't think you've lost anything. I don't know so much about this but what I'd do is reboot the Ipad and you do this by holding the lower center button on its face together with the on/off upper right for a period of ten seconds which is how long it takes to sing the happy birthday song. If that doesn't work, I'll just hang around with you til some real help arrives.

Cool post and coming from bawlbaby!

@OP ~ hang in there!

Hi Kjweede - as long as you have backed up with iTunes, you have a VERY good chance of recovering most, and likely ALL of your info. I had a similar situation and here's what I did to the best of my recollection. It may or may not work in your situation, but it may be worth a try:

1. If the device reboot that bawlbaby suggested works, then skip this step and go to #2. Otherwise, put your iPad in DFU mode (Device Firmware Update) as follows:
a) Start iTunes and connect your iPad.
b) Press and hold down the Sleep and Home buttons together. After 10 seconds (use a watch with a second hand to time yourself), release the Sleep button, but keep holding the Home button down until you get a message in iTunes that it has detected a device in recovery mode (the screen on your iPad will be black).
c) Click the Restore button in iTunes to download the most current firmware onto the iPad.

2. Once you have iOS 5 on your iPad, follow the steps on the iPad screen to activate. When you get to the screen that asks if you want to set your iPad up as a new device or restore from iTunes, connect your iPad to your computer and select Restore from and iTunes backup from the iPad screen. You should see a list of previous iPad backups and be able to choose the most recent backup you did before upgrading to iOS 5.0. Depending upon the amount of data you have, it may take a few hours.

3. If you get an error that says "iTunes could not restore the iPad "Karen's iPad" because the backup session failed", don't panic. I kept repeating this process all day (probably 10-15 times) until it eventually worked. I don't know why, it just worked.

Good luck! Hope this solves the issue and/or someone else may have a better suggestion.

The device reboot doesn't work. I tried that many times yesterday.

I will try ajstan99's advice. Hope it works. I guess it can't hurt anything.

Karen
RELAX Nothing is lost I got the same scary message about my iPad on my computer and that USBpix iTunes screen. All I did was unplug the iPad restart the computer started iTunes 10.5 plugged the iPad back into the USB port
It should show Karen's iPad on the left click it scroll WAY DOWN (it's longer than before and click restore
Seems simpler. Hope it works

Followed Charm's suggestion and when I replug the iPad and start iTunes the message which appears reads:
"iTunes has detected iPAD in recovery mode. You must restore before it can be used with iTunes."

Good. Now scroll down and hit restore on the lower right. Here is a link that walks you thru all the scary language about losing all your data.Not true it's not lost just waiting to be reloaded from your last backup
http://www.ipadtomactransfer.org/ipa...tore-ipad.html
You are almost there. Keep the faith. I am a 64 year old stage IV tongue cancer survivor who had it come back leaving me Oma feeding tube for life so trust me I know how hard this all is for those of us born and raises in the 20th century. Thank god for all these young helpful IPF posters