I can't see the ipad in My Computer on Windows Vista

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I can't see the ipad in My Computer on Windows Vista

I want to transfer some photos from my ipad to my pc, however when I connect with usb cable, all that happens is that Itunes opens. I can't get at the photos on the ipad via Itunes. in "my computer" the ipad isn't visible as a hard drive. When I go to control panel / hardware and sounds / autoplay, ipad isn't listed as a device. Can anyone tell me what do I need to do? i am running 4.3.1 on my ipad and windows vista on my PC - which is about 2 years old.

ipad 1, iOS 4, windows vista on pc

Posted on Mar 27, 2011 12:14 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Carolyn Samit

Level 10

165,615 points

Mar 27, 2011 12:19 PM in response to Julie_Anne

Hi,

Disable anti virus software and turn off the Firewall on your PC.

Then try syncing. You should see the iPad under Devices on the *left side of the iTunes window with the iPad connected.*

If not, follow the instructions here.

The iPad is not an external hard drive.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 2

Mar 27, 2011 12:26 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Actually Carolyn, unlike OS X, iOS devices do show up in Windows Explorer as drives. Well, the photos folder does anyway.
The folder shows up like this
Computer\Iain’s iPad\Internal Storage\DCIM\
You can move/copy/delete photos from iOS devices in Windows, so I'm not sure why the OP is having the problem. Never seen that before. I've seen iTunes not 'seeeing' the devices, but that's usually solved by a unplug/plug process - once or twice!

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Answer 3

Julie_Anne Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 27, 2011 12:27 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

thanks Carolyn, but the problem isn't itunes - the device appears in itunes OK and I can synch music etc. The problem is that i have some photos saved ONLY on the ipad and want to copy them to the PC. The various help forums suggest that I should be able to open the ipad in windows explorer and copy / paste individual photos as normal between different drives.

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Answer 4

Julie_Anne Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 27, 2011 1:00 PM in response to igmackenzie

thanks! Reading what you said, ie that it's not normal for windows to "not see" the ipad, i tried connecting to my laptop which doesn't have itunes installed. I could immediately see the "ian's ipad" in "My computer". Success!! - or so I thought! However when following the path "ian's ipad \ internal content \ dcim" the next problem is that the DCIM folder was empty, even though I have 245 photos on the ipad. The photos were copied onto my ipad from a mac - could this be the problem, do you think?

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Answer 5

Mar 27, 2011 1:09 PM in response to Julie_Anne

Well, I can't answer that as I don't know how you copied them from a Mac. Did you sync them from a particular folder in iTunes? If you did sync them from a Mac, then when you synced again in Windows the folder won't exist, so it is likely that the photos would have been deleted.
If you copied them in some other way, then let us know.
In Windows, the DCIM folder should have a subfolder called something like
Computer\Iain’s iPad 2\Internal Storage\DCIM\800AAAAA
that is where the photos are stored. You should be able to see that in Windows Explorer.

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Answer 6

rimshaker

Level 3

520 points

Mar 27, 2011 1:11 PM in response to Julie_Anne

Double click the DCIM folder, and then dbl click again the folder after that. All your photos should be there.

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Answer 7

Apr 27, 2011 2:51 PM in response to Julie_Anne

i cannot locate a DCIM folder on my PC - I have down a windows explorer search and it simply does not recognise my ipad. I have disconnected it many many many times. but no luck

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Answer 8

Aug 29, 2011 9:35 PM in response to Julie_Anne

I have had the same thing a few times.

The remedy in my case is (rather surprisingly) to make a photo with the ipad and then it'll show up as a drive in win7.

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Answer 9

ackers46

Level 1

0 points

Mar 4, 2012 11:58 AM in response to Martine_here

I had the same problem and followed Martin_here advice and it worked, I can now see my ipad in explorer, the only problem is that the only photo in the DCIM folder is the one I've just taken.

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Answer 10

ackers46

Level 1

0 points

Mar 4, 2012 12:23 PM in response to ackers46

Update.

It would seem that if there are no photo's in 'camera roll' on the ipad it will not be seen in windows explorer. Any photo in a different album than camera roll is not seen in the DCIM folder so the ipad is not detected (and the photo's cannot be deleted this way). I have now got to try and find a way to delete these photo's as I can select them but the 'delete' function is not active.

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Answer 11

Tharzang

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Mar 28, 2012 5:35 AM in response to Martine_here

Very funny, very strange - but it works! Thanks for experimenting and solving this.

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Answer 12

MeMoogi

Level 1

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Apr 3, 2012 6:33 AM in response to Tharzang

That did it! Take a picture then my Windows Vista could see my IPAD 3 A5X. Thanks for the thread. Worked for me too.

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Answer 13

Jul 21, 2012 7:13 PM in response to Martine_here

You guys rock! Thats absolutely the solution. Was working on it forever till I did what you said...just take a photo. Thanks so much!

Tommy V

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Answer 14

Sep 23, 2015 3:55 PM in response to Tommyvercetti

If you find this happens again with the latest update of iOS 9 then you might try to uninstall the Media Espresso app or whatever it is. As soon as I did that, the iPad was visible again.

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