Hi. I have a Windows 7 PC. In its Control Panel, I have chosen to see the iPad as a device / drive in explorer. But when I connect, the iPad does not appear in explorer. (Although a message appeared in windows that I had successfully USB drivers for an

Apple doesn't allow user to view their devices in the Window Explorer. You can browse your device in iTunes.

What content are you wanting to copy of the iPad ? You should be able to copy off anything that you've purchased from Apple (films, music, ibooks, apps etc) by connecting the iPad to your computer's iTunes and doing File > Transfer Purchases. If you want to copy off music copied from your own CDs or purchased from other sites then you will need to find a program for your computer that can copy them off – iTunes won't copy them off.

For photos taken with the iPad, copied to it via the camera connection kit or saved from emails/websites then you should be able to copy them off via the Windows camera wizard.

For photos that were originally synced from a computer you will need a third-party app such as Simple Transfer which can copy them off via your wifi network. But as photos are 'optimised' when they are synced to the iPad, any that you then copy back to a computer may not be exactly the same as they originally were on your computer.

Content in third-party apps (documents and files etc) then how you copy that content off will depend upon what the apps that they are in support e.g.either via the file sharing section at the bottom of the device's apps tab when connected to iTunes, via wifi, email, dropbox etc.

Have you tried a reset of the iPad to see if it works after the iPad has restarted ? Press and hold both the sleep and home buttons for about 10 to 15 seconds (ignore the red slider), after which the Apple logo should appear - you won't lose any content, it's the iPad equivalent of a reboot.

If you haven't already done so you could also try rebooting your computer.

With the iPad connected, have you also tried opening the windows camera wizard via Start > Computer on your PC (as described on this page) ?

Have you tried opening the camera wizard yourself (from here) :

Choose Start > Computer.

Right-click the logo for your device and click Import pictures and videos.

The photos still show on the iPad's Photos app in the Camera Roll album ? Your tagline also that you have a Macbook Air, so are able to try copying the photos off via that, via iPhoto, Aperture or Image Capture ?

I am having the same issue , more or less.

The windows 7 explorer refuses to show the ipad as an external camera...

But also itunes 11.03 gives me connection problems. It opens up by itself when i connect the ipad3 and synchornizes. Then when I swap to itunes I have no to get back to the pad.

For downloading images there is anamazing app called 'transfer' that will send a zipped fileof allselected images to your pcor mac by wifii.

What is the third party app that opens up the ipad as external disc?

TIA

It appears Apple is using IOS as an excuse to clamp down on copyright material. So I and many others have purchased devices (Apple products) that work ony the way the manufactureer want s them to work so the user has no flexibility in its use? No longer is compatibility to other OS's a virtue, but it seems those times are gone. Of course its probably in the T&C of the agreement but who has time or the law degree to read that double speak jargon these days. " You shall not do this but we have no responsibility to the users bla bla bla"

Time to move from iTures and Apple, they are just a big corporate squeeze on the consumer.