Ok so there's lots of threads on here where people have something go wrong with an iTunes restore or a Spirit jailbreak, but it always turns out that all they need to do is a restore or use DFU to restore.

My problem is, I can't do either!

The day I got my iPad I used Spirit to jailbreak, I ran into a couple of problems and thought I'd bricked it. I ended up just using the restore mode (holding sleep and home until I got the connect to iTunes image) and using iTunes to do a regular restore. I re-jailbroke it with Spirit successfully and everything was good.

A few days later I was playing with an app called "Categories" which clearly wasn't designed for iPad and ended up getting it stuck on the apple boot logo. Not a problem, I used restore mode and iTunes to get it back to factory defaults and re-jailbroke it again.

Everything was fine and dandy until a couple of days ago when I was playing with an iPad app, can't remember the name of it, but it was for free iDevice texting (it wasn't Ping or TextMe) I pressed the button to change the app's background image and the iPad Froze. It stopped responding totally so I held down the sleep button and it eventually shut off. When I turned it back on I got stuck on the apple boot logo so I figured I'd have to use recovery mode again to restore. No such luck.

No matter what I press, or hold, or so on, I can't get the connect to itunes image to appear. Just a black screen. I connect to my Windows PC and I can hear the USB plugging in sound, iTunes says it has detected an iPad in recovery mode and needs to restore. Problem is, when I do that it always freezes on "Waiting for iPad"

I get the apple logo on the iPad screen with a progress bar, just like the other times I had to restore, but it never moves off 0% no matter how long I leave it.

I've tried different USB ports, cables, re-installed iTunes, different versions of iTunes, re-downloaded the iPad .ipsw file, different PC... But still can't get the damn thing to restore. I've spent 2 days now trying and re-trying.

I'm pretty sure I'm screwed. The only thing I haven't tried is doing the restore on a Mac because I don't have one. I don't want to take the iPad back to the apple store for the genius' to fix because I haven't managed to restore it and they *may* know that it's been jailbroken. I guess I could plead ignorance though and say it just froze in iTunes or something.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Something I've missed?

Thanks in advance!

Well first off Categories works just fine for jailbreaking, it was the first app I installed over a month ago and still use every day so it must have been something else.

If you have tried everything, including holding down the power and home button for ten seconds with it unplugged to see if it will reboot, and you can't get it to connect or use it with iTunes, then just take it back. I highly doubt the "Geniuses" are going to know. If they can't get it to turn on anyhow, most likely they're just going to go into the back, grab a brown boxed iPad, and replace yours.

Agreed.
Genius is an honorific. Aspired to but rarely achieved.

If it's truly dead they will never know or care. If they fix it hurrah!
Either way you win.

You will of course feel morally diminished but a working iPad will quickly help you get over it

The only problem if they are able to restore it is, I'm sure they'll use iTunes 9.2 which means I won't be able to use Spirit to jailbreak it again. At least not until Spirit is updated. But I guess I can't complain about a working iPad.

Tas,

Please let us know how this turns out....just for my own piece of mind about jail breaking.

I have faced the approximately the same thing with my iPad, pressing the power and home button will make the iPad freeze on apple logo. And finally got a solution from apple website on how to restore the iPad, it's an "iPad Recovery Mode", the solution is as follows:

1. With the iPad powered off, press and hold the Home button, connect the USB cable from PC/Mac to iPad.

2. Continue holding the Home button until you see the "Connect to iTunes" screen, then release the Home button.

3. Open up iTunes to see iPad in recovery mode.

from there you can restore your iPad, it works for me, I have jailbreak my iPad, installed every apps and games I can get from the web, run each one to make sure that it works, and so far for two weeks I haven't had any problem with the iPad.

Beside with this method I think you will delete all the trails to jailbreak, no way apple geeks can find anything on your iPad that leads to jailbreak.

Hope that helps

Regards

Connect the ipad to the PC via USB cable and have iTunes running.
Hold the sleep/wake and Home button at the same time untill it reboots.
As soon as you see the screen flicker off to reboot the ipad start counting to 10.
once you count to 10 release the sleep/wake button and continue to hold the Home button.
iTunes should pop up a message saying it has detected a device in DFU mode.


While in DFU mode your ipad may just have a blank/black screen, dont worry its working as it should. If you dont get the message from itunes about the ipad being in DFU mode try agian until you do, since it has to be timed right.

once in DFU mode and you finish performing the restore it should do one of two things.
#1 reboot and start working like normal
#2 Reboot and show the connect to iTunes logo and itunes detects it in recovery mode.

If #2 happens don't perform another restore, performing another restore will give you the same results with it asking to connect to iTunes agian and agian. Instead just run the spirit jailbreak agian while its still showing the connect to itunes logo and spirit should reboot the iPad. Once the iPad reboots it will be working and display the iOS.

Mmm, this is a little concerning. Let us know the outcome of this, would be interesting to know.

Good news... it's fixed!

First of all, thanks for all the suggestions... I had tried them all already however. It was kinda strange, iTunes never mentioned DFU when i had the iPad plugged in but I never got a "connect to iTunes" message on the screen, only ever a black screen then the progress bar when trying to restore (which never moved off 0%)

Anyways, here's the funny story of how it got fixed...

I had pretty much given up on the thing, I'd spent HOURS messing around trying to restore it and thought my only remaining option was to take it back to the Apple store. Then, my technologically retarded girlfriend goes "Let me try!" and I scoffed at her for wasting her time. She says "You've just gotta have the skills! Watch and learn as I press my magical button combinations and get this thing back up and running again!"

She proceeds to push and hold buttons and all sorts of things, I really wasn't paying attention because I thought it was a waste of time. Next she connects it to iTunes and hits the restore button, same as I'd done countless times already. It showed the progress bar on the iPad sitting at 0% with no movement. "Heh" I said and went off to watch some TV. 30 Minutes later she hands it to me with the home screen on the display and a big grin on her face...

***?

Still not sure what she did, I think she just left it on the restoring screen longer than I had previously, that's the only thing I can think of that she could've done differently.

Anyway, it's now back up and running again... I think the moral of the story is, never underestimate the power of your tech inept partner... Either that or have more patience on the restoring screen. *shrugs*

One strange thing since the restore though, I've noticed that the battery display never moves off 100% but for now I'm just glad that it's working again.

Thanks again for all the helpful suggestions guys!

Doh!

Something's not right still.

I just power cycled it to see if the battery indicator would fix itself and now it's not turning back on again. Same thing as before...

I've got it sitting on the restore screen. Going to leave it there for at least 30 mins this time.

I'll keep you updated.