Bricked iPad Air

[zappaDPJ]

The latest update of iOS has well and truly bricked my iPad Air. It won't even restore to factory settings.

[Simon]

Have you tried Recovery Mode:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808

[zappaDPJ]

I have and while I can get it to start the procedure, it bails out with the same undefined error. I'm about to take it up to the PC repair shop and attempt the same procedure on a fresh installation of iTunes. If I recall correctly that fixed it for me when I had the same issue updating one of our iPhones.

Thanks for the suggestion though

[Simon]

Given that you've had a similar problem with two different devices, does it seem as though something in your upgrade process could be a common factor?

[zappaDPJ]

Given that you've had a similar problem with two different devices, does it seem as though something in your upgrade process could be a common factor?

It would seem logical although I can't imagine what as it works the majority of the time. I know the phone got bricked through the USB 2.0 port whereas this time the iPad was connected via a USB 3.0 port. Anyway a fresh installation of iTunes on the shop's PC got me up and running again the same as it did the last time except I used an old laptop. Strange.

[Steve]

Apart from a dodgy phone I got of eBay I've recently always used OTA updates

[Technical Ben]

The latest update of iOS has well and truly bricked my iPad Air. It won't even restore to factory settings.

I'll try and skip it on the work one(s) then! Just in case. 

[zappaDPJ]

I'll try and skip it on the work one(s) then! Just in case. 

You might want to at least delay the deploying the update. I've now read a number reports of people having the same issue as me on various hardware including the iPad Air. Same undefined error, same problems with the restore. 

[zappaDPJ]

Unless it got installed by stealth, the update seems to have been applied when I restored from backup. I can't imagine how that could have happened as that suggests a backup was performed after the update went wrong. Very odd.

[Steve]

Perhaps I miss understand but you cannot restore an old iOS unless a you specify the old ipsw and b it's still signed off by Apple. Anyway my IPad has been updated and it's thankfully no,worse than it was, I think although mobile data was a bit iffy this am.

[zappaDPJ]

I've probably not explained what happened very well. I tried to update to the latest version of iOS via iTunes which failed. I had to do a factory restore to the defaults using another PC and then a system restore using my backup from iTunes on my PC. At that point it appears to have left me with the latest version of iOS. I don't understand how the latest version got backed up because it failed to install.

[Technical Ben]

It did not. It backed up your files, to re-install and installed the os afresh (I would assume).
Most mobile devices now lock out the OS and the user data separate. Unlike Windows which merges it all in one HDD and partition for ease of use and ease of catastrophe, or Linux which nicely partitions both for the option of backing up both (or not and only upgrading/downgrading the OS on it's own ).