I'm a little confused about the process of backing up files from my iPad 2 to iTunes on my laptop.

Recently when I connected the iPad to the laptop and told iTunes to sync it, it seemed to me that the result was that the contents of the iPad was made the same as what had been on iTunes. So some app data that had been on the iPad appeared to vanish.

I definitely don't want to do this. When I sync, I don't want the contents of the iPad touched in any way. Rather, I want to make a copy on the laptop of everything on the iPad, including app data and working files.

Is there something I need to know about how to do this?

Was that the first time you had ever synced with the PC, and had you been using your iPad independently of the PC for a while?

Originally Posted by f4780y

Was that the first time you had ever synced with the PC, and had you been using your iPad independently of the PC for a while?

Not entirely sure. I thought I'd connected the iPad to iTunes on the laptop when I first bought the iPad a couple of weeks ago. But this was the first sync at least since then.

I want to be able to use iTunes on the laptop to back up data from the iPad (including working files from Goodreader and Pages, photos, etc), but I don't want any changes to be made on the iPad. I've now set iTunes on the laptop so that it only does manual syncs, not automatic syncs, on any devices. Is there anything else I need to do or settings I need to make to accomplish what I want to?

connect ipad to itunes, in itunes you will see your ipad in the left window, right click on your ipad, choose transfer purchases first, then backup after, you're done.
always do this, just to be safe.

The problem is the very first time you sync, iTunes wants to set things up from scratch. Ideally you should not only connect your iPad to active it, but you should also do a sync so that the connection is made and from then on it's plain sailing.
In your case it didn't know what to do, so wanted to make your iPad look the same as your PC the first time.
As Poser said, you could have chosen the "transfer purchases" option and that should have brought everything over from the iPad. You shouldn't need to do this going forward, but as Poser says, it doesn't hurt to do it.

Since you have sync'd now, you should be OK, assuming you have set each tab in iTunes (music, photos, etc.) to be set that way you want. On the "Apps" tab in particular, you probably want BOTH boxes ticked ("Automatically Sync New Apps" is below the list of apps).
Now you won't lose anything from your iPad, it will keep both devices in sync. In theory at least

Hope that helps.

Thanks. I didn't know that it was right-clicking on the iPad icon in iTunes that would bring up the menu choices for transferring purchases and backing up -- that was easy.

A new question: I looked at the Photos tab in iTunes where the "Sync Photos from My Pictures" box was unchecked. I didn't know if "My Pictures" referred to photos on the iPad, or on my Windows laptop. I tried checking this box, and was alarmed to see the gauge at the bottom of iTunes suddenly showed 30GB of space on my iPad now taken up by photos. (I have virtually no photos on the iPad, but probably something like 30GB on the laptop.) Fortunately I was able to select a button marked "Revert," and cancelled this.

Do I need to enable sync'ing of photos in order to back up photos from my iPad to the laptop? Or are they automatically included along with any other files when I tell iTunes to back up the iPad?

Also, where in iTunes can I see the backed-up files to confirm that they are actually there?

The folder selection is set to 'My Pictures' by default. You can change this to any folder on the computer you want. When you do so, each subfolder (one level down only) under the main folder will be come an album.

If you check the Selected Folders, option you can determine which sub-folders will sync.

This is a one way sync, from the computer to the iPad. Any changes you want to make to these albums on the iPad must be made on the computer first, then synced to the iPad. For that reason it is recommended that you create a folder with sub-folders specifically for the iPad to sync to, and place copies of the pictures there.

Photos really isn't a very good photo organizer. It's adequate for showing off the family photos, and necessary if you want your photos to be available to third party apps, but it lacks in most other ways.

If you want real photo organization and import/export options you'll want to find a third party app. Though iOS 5 is supposed to make some improvements to the Photos app, other than some basic editing options I'm not sure what all will be changed.

Missed the backup question. You can find out more than you probably wanted to know here: iPad: About backups

concerning photos, syncing photos with a mac is way better, more options.
because of iphoto on a Mac.

basically my ipad photo app have more tabs than if it was synced with windows(-2,3 tabs).