QUICK QUESTION

I have had to restore iTunes on my PC from scratch after a catastrophic disk crash.

Is there a way to restore the songs and applications currently on my iPad2 onto the newly installed iTunes. I am afraid that if I do a regular sync, I may transfer the now empty iTunes onto my iPad and end up losing all the download apps, songs, and other content.

Logic indicates there should be some method to copy the content from the iPad to the iTunes application.

Any help or guidance appreciated.

Roy Sletcher
Loving my iPad2

As a precaution, open preferences, go to the Devices tab, and turn off auto-syncing. This should prevent iTunes from syncing before your ready, and causing you to loose some content.

Now connect your iPad.

When you get the erase/sync dialog, there should also be a Transfer Purchases option. Choose that. If you do not get that option, cancel out of the dialog, right click on the iPad in he Devices list and choose Transfer Purchases. Alternately you can select Transfer Purchases from. . . under the File menu.

When it finishes (this may take quite a while, depending on how much stuff you have on the iPad) make sure all your stuff got transferred. If not try the Transfer Purchases option again. On rare occasions, or when it gets interrupted, not everything will get copied.

That should put an end to the dialog about erasing your iPad.

Now go through all the sync settings for the iPad in iTunes, and make sure they are set the way you want. Note that if you have been syncing photos into albums, and that the sync is turned off this will remove them from the iPad. If those pictures must be recovered because they are no where else you may want to hold of syncing the iPad until you recover them back to the computer. If you have other copies, or were syncing with iPhoto, then just set it how you want.

Be careful about how the apps get synced. If you accidentally delete an app from the iPad all the documents, settings, game progress, ect associated with that app will be deleted too. You can get the app back, but until you've done a back up you can't get that stuff back.

Come to think of it, now is a good time to do a backup. Right click on the iPad under the Devices list and choose Backup.

Now, go to where the backup file is stored and make a copy. Because syncing always does a backup, your first sync will overwrite this file and defeat the whole purpose of this backup, which is to make the iPad recoverable if your first sync messes things up. Here is a link on where you can find the backup file for various OS's. You'll find it under the About Syncing and Backups section:

iPad: About backups

When you have everything set the way you want, and have confirmed that all your media is in iTunes (on the computer), or safely duplicated elsewhere on the computer, go ahead and sync.

Very informative! Much appreciated. Any tips on saving the way apps are organized on the IPad?

No problem.

The screen layout is supposed to be saved when you backup and sync the iPad. Experience has shown that it does not always restore successfully. Keep an eye on how the screens are organized in iTunes under the Apps page (when iPad is connected). If they don't match what your iPad shows, that is a good indication that it won't restore properly. Try manually backing up a couple times to see if you can get it to match.

I saw an article a while ago about getting iTunes to restore the layout. If I remember right the author basically says that after you've restored from the backup, and re-synced your apps, do another restore from backup. That makes sense, since restoring from a backup does not copy that apps, and any app that was not on the iPad when the restore happens may not get told where to go.

That's all I can suggest. I'm afraid to go experimental with it. After all, I don't' want to spend the next hour re-arrainging my screens.


So far I have not heard of any similar problems when backing up and restoring from iCloud with iOS 5, or iTunes with iOS 5 for that matter. It is early days, so we'll have to wait and see if the problem persists.