iPad 2 to iPad 2 Restore Failure - Apps all Gone

Question

iPad 2 to iPad 2 Restore Failure - Apps all Gone

My iPad 2 screen cracked (without being dropped), and to Apple's credit, they gave me a new one yesterday at the local Apple Store. I had done a total sync on damaged iPad before going to store, and then took the new iPad 2 and plugged it into iTunes. Of course, I chose to do a restore, and it seemed to take a very long time, loading everything up.

Issue: All of my music loaded up just fine, but ZERO apps. I then looked at iTunes, and it is showing no apps for the iPad. Big problem, I have purchased what amounts easily to over $1000 worth of apps. I then figured that if I just started manually loading some apps, with the iPad not plugged in, that I would get the standard message that I have already purchased the app, so it is free. I tried this with Pages (yes, I know, I should have "tested" this theory with a .99 cents app, not so swift). It charged me!

Any ideas as to what went wrong here? How do I get my apps back?

Thanks,

Scott

iPad 2, iOS 4.3.2, 64GB + Verizon Cellular

Posted on May 29, 2011 9:57 AM

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Answer 1

King_Penguin

Level 10

334,336 points

May 29, 2011 10:20 AM in response to Scott McPherson

Are you using the same iTunes account that you used to originally download the apps ? You should be able to re-download them for free if you are : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

Also the backup contains the app contents and settings, but not the apps themselves - if you can get the apps into your computer's iTunes library then the restore should work better (in order to restore the contents of an app it needs to be able to install the app itself first)

Message was edited by: King_Penguin

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Answer 2

May 29, 2011 10:51 AM in response to King_Penguin

Thanks, you were right, but it was a series of things that went wrong. First, I have a new quad iMac that is just out of the box that I synced the first iPad 2 with, but somehow I did not authorize yet. So, for anyone who runs into this problem in the future, as basic a solution as it is, make sure your computer running iTunes is 1 of 5 allowed to be authorized. Once I did that and went to purchase prior apps, I did receive the message that it was free because it had already been purchased before. Thx again.

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