Locked Out of iPad 2: "Activation Server is Temporarily Unavailable," Asking for the Wrong Password, "Device Unknown"
The actual problem is this: I used to use an iPad 2 (with SIM card slot) very regularly throughout my childhood (mid-late 2010s,) and this year I wanted to get the GarageBand projects and Photos content off it. Lo and behold, however, once the process actually succeeds without giving me the """activation server is temporarily unavailable""" message, I discover there's some stupid activation lock from some idiot who shouldn't have had access to the family account close to six years ago. I thought they'd locked the iPad 3 which I never really used, but somehow this one's locked now.
I CAN'T ADD IMAGES. IT EITHER INVALIDATES THEM OR FREEZES ON THE LOADING WHEEL.
The activation lock asks for my dad's Apple ID it was first set up with well over a decade ago, not the one I replaced it with years later as I was using it, so once I get that and IT ACTUALLY GETS TO THAT PROMPT AGAIN INSTEAD OF GIVING UP, it freezes for a second, then decides to throw a "device unknown" error at me. I look that up online and get this response to someone else getting the same error on a comparatively brand-new phone, which tells them that they got this error because the IMEI number had been deleted. So I lock the thing and go to that page to see there is an IMEI number but there's no ICCID. Apparently that's just because there's no SIM card in it.
I've tried this multiple times, talking to my dad and asking if he sees anything in Find My. He told me it's showing him nothing, which is the same thing I get. It still appears in my list of devices with the name I gave it, only it doesn't respond to anything. I tell it to play a sound, and the loading wheel on "connecting" never goes away. Connecting it to my 2014 MacBook Air (which still works with iCloud and everything) to try and activate it that way just throws me into an infuriating loop of perpetual "timing out."
As I'm stuck in these two loops, I remember that every time I try this again and start it, before it gets past the "it may take a few minutes to activate your iPad" screen, it asks for the password for the Apple ID I put on it to get into the iTunes store, despite the fact that I can't access it. I even get one of those 2FA codes on my iPhone 13, but it doesn't ask me to put it in!!! Why is that half-working but the rest of it isn't!?
If it's not the IMEI, what HFIL is it?! Why won't it even let me get to the password screen 99% of the time? Why's it asking for a password I'm not supposed to know, while also asking me for the password I set up on it for the iTunes Store when I can't access it!?! Most importantly, however, how do I break this cycle of being locked out of this iPad as it refuses to cooperate???
iPad is 64GB iPad 2 with SIM card slot, model A1396, probably running iOS 9.3.6
[Edited by Moderator]
