iPad won’t turn on? How to save your photos and files

An iPad that shows nothing but a black screen, or sits on the Apple logo and never reaches the lock screen, feels especially worrying when it holds years of family photos, a child’s drawings or work notes. Often the fix is simple, and many of those files may already be safe in iCloud. The important thing is not to erase the iPad while you are trying to bring it back. Here is what to check, in a safe order.

First, rule out the simple causes

• Charge it properly. Use a wall charger and a cable you know works, not a laptop port, and leave it for at least an hour. A fully drained battery can take a while before anything appears on screen.
• Check the charging port. Lint and debris can stop the connector seating fully. Look with a torch, but do not push metal objects into the port.
• Force a restart. On an iPad with a Home button, hold the Home and top buttons together until the Apple logo appears. Without a Home button, press and release volume up, press and release volume down, then hold the top button until the logo appears. This does not erase anything.
• Check whether the screen is the only problem. If you hear sounds, feel it respond or see a very faint image, the iPad may be running behind a failed display. That is good news for your data.

Do not keep charging an iPad that has got wet or feels hot, or one where the screen has started to lift away from the case. Lifting can mean a swollen battery, which is a safety risk. Stop, leave it unplugged and get it looked at.

Stuck on the Apple logo? Choose Update, never Restore

If the iPad starts but will not finish loading, you can connect it to a Mac or Windows PC and put it into recovery mode. The Finder, iTunes or the Apple Devices app will then offer two choices, and the difference between them is critical:

• Update tries to reinstall iPadOS while keeping your data.
• Restore erases the iPad and sets it up as new.

Choose Update, and only Update. If it fails, stop there and do not move on to Restore unless you are sure everything is backed up. Once an iPad has been erased, the encryption keys protecting the old data are gone and nobody can get it back.

Check what you may already have

Before you spend any money, find out what is already safe. Sign in with your Apple Account on another device or at iCloud.com, and check:

• Photos, if iCloud Photos was switched on.
• iCloud Drive, Notes, Contacts, Calendars and Reminders.
• iCloud Backups. On an iPhone, look under Settings, then your name, then iCloud and the storage or backups section, to see whether a backup of the iPad exists and when it was made.
• Computer backups, made through the Finder or iTunes on a Mac or PC you have used with the iPad.

Also think about apps with their own storage. Files in apps such as Google Photos, Dropbox or OneDrive may be available simply by signing in elsewhere. Drawings or documents held only inside an app on the iPad are the ones most likely to be at risk.

Why you cannot just take the storage out

An external hard drive can be removed from its case and read on a bench. An iPad does not work that way. Its storage is soldered to the logic board, and everything on it is encrypted with keys tied to that device’s own chip and your passcode. Moved to another board, the storage would be unreadable.

That means recovery depends on getting the original board working for long enough to unlock the iPad and copy the data. Two things follow from this:

• You will need your passcode. Without it the data cannot be decrypted, and no reputable company will tell you otherwise. If your iPad says “iPad Unavailable” or “Security Lockout” because of wrong passcode attempts, Apple’s route is to erase it, so check your backups before doing that.
• Board-level faults can often be worked on. Dead iPads can be caused by a failed charging circuit, a damaged power component or liquid corrosion, rather than by the storage itself. Fixing the fault that stops it starting may be enough to reach your files.

What not to do

• Do not choose Restore or Erase while the data still matters.
• Do not agree to a screen or board replacement until you have asked what will happen to your data. Some repairs involve swapping the device or erasing it.
• Do not put a wet iPad in rice or dry it with a hairdryer. Switch it off, leave it off and get it inspected, because corrosion carries on after it looks dry.
• Do not buy “iPad data recovery” software expecting it to read a dead tablet. Such tools need a working device that the computer can see.

Keeping your files safer next time

Turn on iCloud Backup and make sure you have enough iCloud storage for it to finish, then check the date of the last backup every so often. An occasional encrypted backup to a computer gives you a second copy that does not depend on your iCloud account. You can read more about how we handle these devices on our iPad data recovery page, and our tablet data recovery page covers other makes.

Need your iPad files back?

Call Data Retrieval on 020 7064 4996. We offer a free assessment with no obligation, so you will know where you stand before any work is done.