Q: Ipad turns on and off in a loop during charging, and won't turn on at all off charge?

Yes this is the problem!! BUT if you sit there and press the home and power buttons at the same time every time you see the apple (and then release), and do this about 40X as Wild Child said eventually the ipad comes to life for a second and you need to act quick and as soon as any sign of power comes on hit the power button only and slide off! DO THIS WHILE PLUGGED INTO AN OUTLET! Then let it sit charging like she said.  With mine I was working on different things for hours;  so once I got it to power off, I left it all night and in the morning 100% charged!

Now the other thing I tried (successfully but not on the first try)  first was to restore the entire ipad back to factory settings through iTunes because while playing around with the buttons initially, the icon for iTunes came up with a picture of the plug and when I googled, I found instructions on how to restore through iTunes.  THIS WAS EXTREMELY challenging as well because since I couldn;t charge (and battery was nearly dead), ipad kept disconnecting from computer.  But I tried until it finally worked.

I am not sure if it was necessary to restore first in my case because I didn't see WildChild's post until after I had already been through the whole process of restoring. (and still couldn;t see what I had done until I used the instructions on charging it back up through this thread!)

Also remember that when you restore, YOU LOSE Everything initially.  If you have ipad backed up in icloud, you can retrieve this once your ipad is fully charged and you set it up again.

SO I tried wildchild's method and it was so discouraging! I thought my iPad was done, and I was bummed because I got it for facetime for piano lessons! (obviously i use it for more ) but i tried your method, and yours was the only one that worked!! Thanks so much!

Glad you were able to fix your ipad!  One thing I learned through research is to try not to let the ipad/iphone get so low on battery (that was my problem anyway-it did, in fact get stuck because of this).  Also use electric outlet vs. computer to charge when possible.  All of these tricks are good to know!

Thank you so much, worked on my ipad3. Thought I was going to have to trash it. Excellent post, thanks for sharing.

What if the "spinny thing" doesnt appear after the apple logo disappears like in my iPad....?? and to make matters worse,my iPad 2 doesnt charge when you turn it off. the battery usage shows i have been unable to achieve a full charge since......?? Is this part of the problem-getting to 100% full charge?

Hello WildChild7778,

Since you helped others so well, I thought I would tell you what's going on with my IPAD ISO8.  When I plug it in I may or may not see the battery charging indicator.  If I do see the battery it has a tiny line of red on it... then it may or may not flash and goes to a back screen and at this point the battery doesn't show up anymore. I've tried pushing and holding the start and sleep buttons at the same time and just in case I, also, pushed and held them by themselves. I've plugged the device into several different wall sockets and several different computers.  I took it to the Apple store and they said they couldn't help me because it won't turn on and gave me options to purchase a new one.  This Ipad is only 2 years old and to treat it like it's a disposable item just doesn't seem logical to me.  I would greatly appreciate your input on this subject.  Thanks in advance for your time.  Tina

Hi Tina.  I agree this is very frustrating and I took me hours to rectify, BUT MY IPAD WORKS using Wildchild's method.  You literally have to sit there with Ipad PLUGGED INTO WALL OUTLET and hold home and power buttons down, many many times and release each time you see the apple. Once you see the power off bar, you have to immediately power off and then charge all night.

Initially I restored ipad using iTunes because I was seeing the iTunes logo with a picture of power cord on the screen while trying the above method.  This was even more challenging because my ipad died while updating the first two or three times, but eventually it worked and was restored to factory settings.  YOU WILL LOSE EVERTHING this way; so if you don't have ipad backed up in icloud I would keep trying Wildchild's method alone.  As long as you can get to the point where you can power off and then LEAVE IT CHARGING!!

I am not sure if restoring helped with this particular problem, and it was tough since ipad was not cooperating because of low battery!!  But it finally restored (follow instructions while signed into iTunes at this point and only at this point you will have to plug ipad into computer).  This is only an option when you see the iTunes logo on screen (it will be black screen with iTunes icon and a pic of your power cord).  Anything is worth a try since the ipad won't work even if you don't have it backed up in the cloud.

I would still try following wildchild's steps over and over before trying anything else.  Keep following the step to hold down both buttons and release and see what happens,  until you see "slide to poweroff" button and power off immediately!! and then leave it charging all night! I know I did it more than 40 times and yes it seems crazy but it worked!

Try restoring it first to factory settings (you will lose all data apps,contacts unless you have it backed up in cloud)  If you keep pressing the home and power buttons at the same time, you will eventually see an iTunes icon and a picture of a power cord.  You need to have ipad plugged into a WALL OUTLET while trying this..  To restore, you'll have to plug into your computer and sign into Itunes and follow the instructions from iTunes.

worked thanks Rodneypwns .  I just want to add however that I had to try a few times to get the timing right.

I started with the ipad plugged in.

when the it starts to come to life (apple sign) then I unplugged it and held it close to the charging port so as not to miss the timing when it circle thing starts to spin.

I had about 1 sec to insert the charger otherwise it would go back to same error.

when I did get the timing right the ipad made a singular click sound and went blank.

At this point don't touch it because if you depress the home button it will begin the error cycle again.

so leave it don't touch it, come back in few hours and voila, back to business.

  thanks again

Yes listen to wildchild. Nothing else was working for me until I let it charge in recovery mode for 2 hours . Then I restoured it and it is working!!! I am typing from my iPad as we speak. Also if it doesnt work the first time keep trying and if not let it charge for longer , I only got 2% battery but it was enough for it to turn on and fully restore!!!! Also it doesn't have to be a mac book computer because I used a windows 8

Thank you. It worked for me :-)

Try "rodneypwns" it's the quickest and easyest, the solution from "Wildchild" is too complicated and takes too long. Just FYI!

Here's what I did to fix it. It was already plugged into the computer. As the ipad2 was cycling through the on and off apple logo I continuously held down the power switch - the home button on the front and the UP volume control - all three at the same time. I just held all three down and eventually (maybe 3-4 minutes) the ipad popped back on normally.

Thank you!  I had previously used wild child's instructions and in the past it worked.  Today it also worked but I wasn't fast enough when the home screen came up to turn it off.  Then I saw your post and decided to try your instructions and after putting it in DFU I waited 6 hours and couldn't stand not checking any longer and it worked!  iPad was up to 17% and I was able to power it off!!!  Both instory toons work but yours is less frustrating and keeps my finger from going numb clicking the rest/wake button and home button 50 plus times.  Much appreciated!!!!!

This works thank you! problem is really have to do it a bit longer... half way though doing it i really have to go use bathroom.. and i had been doing it for 8 mins, so i was like well... lets see if it works.... well it turned on and showed 1%, and then turned right off so 8 mins def is not long enough so i went and use bathroom.. now i am ganna try to do it longer so it could stay on