"Replacement needed" appeared on my iPad 2 after software update

Unbelievable!! I have just turned on my iPad2, I have tried once again and... Now it's finally working!!! Activation completed, with IOS8!

It seems like a random problem of the activation process...!

I'm so happy!! 🙂

I am very happy, finally managed to activate my ipad2, updated the ios8 last week but could not activate, today I tried again and finally successfully activated.

Who could not even keep trying, because I think you also will.

Good luck.

Worked for me too.

Took my ipad 2 from the shelf a couple of days ago and attempted to activate it again.

Seems like Apple has rectified something in their database, now the activation went smoothly. After thousand of tries with different simcards, numerous combinations of language/region and different wi-fi nets it went alive again.

Same situation here! I upgraded my iPad 2 to iOS 7 last April and I got the "replacement needed" message. I tried to restore and reactivate several time, but no luck. I called the Apple support but they told me to go to an Apple Store. I went to 2 different Apple Stores, but they asked me 249 euros to change it... that's crazy!

When iOS 8 was released I upgraded my iPad 2 and, magically, I was able to activate it! This means that it was because of Apple!

In the meanwhile I bought an iPad air...