Restoring My Frozen iPad - Final

The trouble began on Sept 18.. See previous post.

After waiting and waiting for Apple to rest my iPad, it finally happened. On Sept 23 I got an email from Apple support thanking me for providing the proof of ownership. Nothing else except a line about “iCloud: Find My iPhone Activation Lock in iOS 7” and a link  to explain it.

I didn't quite know what to expect, but turned on my iPad and it accepted my Apple ID and password. It asked me if I wanted to set it back to new, restore from a backup in iCloud or restore from a backup on my PC.

I opened iTunes, plugged in my iPad, waited for iTunes to find it and selected restore from my PC.

Wonderful! And it was restored to OS 8!

I don’t know how they did it, but obviously Apple does ‘know’ how to access all of their devices. I guess they can somehow do that by using the Serial Number.

Sometimes it pays to be a packrat. The only way I could get the Serial Number was from the iPad box, because I couldn’t get to it on the iPad.

I have four things to say.

First, Apple Support is wonderful!

Second, don’t update your Apple devices using iTunes! Apple Support did tell me that when their servers are very busy, iTunes could cause a problem updating.

Third, do make a backup before updating. I now have a backup on my computer AND in iCloud.

Fourth, keep a copy of your serial number in a safe place, you never know when you might need it!

How to find the serial number of your Apple hardware product

I love my iPad!

Restoring My Frozen iPad

Today, Sept 18, I updated my iPhone to iOS8. it was really easy. Then I decided to upgrade my iPad, but first I decided to back it up in iTunes.

While I was in iTunes I elected to update it to OS8.

Big mistake! It froze. It didn't update, just sat there. Eventually I figured out there was a problem, so I decided to restore the backup.

Bigger problem, iTunes no longer recognized that my iPad was there.

Apple Support had me try a lot of things, but nothing worked. Just couldn't figure out what happened or how to fix.

Decided to try it on my Compaq with Windows 8. I didn't have iTunes on this laptop, so went through the long process of getting it installed. Apple Support said their servers were very busy! Finally it installed and yea! It recognized I had an iPad and also that it was in need of a repair.



I waited for the process to complete and finally it asked me for my Apple ID and password.



No such luck here. Somehow the Apple ID for this iPad must be crossed with someone else's ID. I don't know what is going on. I have only one Apple ID and it doesn't begin with a z!



Apple Support was really good through all of this hassle, but unfortunately the only way to get the iPad set back to new (if it even can) is to provide Apple with proof I really did buy this iPad new.

Since I bought it at BestBuy, I trekked on over to BB and they gave me a copy of the original receipt. I dully scanned it and sent it to Apple Support, which can (probably) take two business days to complete the process of resetting.

In the meantime I am without my iPad and I sure do miss it.

If I don't hear back by Tuesday, I will take it the Apple Store along with the box it came in and the copy of the receipt.

The Geek at BestBuy told me sometimes iTunes can cause a problem with updates, so lesson learned.

Back it up on iTunes, but don't update there!

As a side note, my iPhone updated with no problem, but of course it wasn’t through iTunes.

I will say, I am very impressed with Apple Support, more than any other support I have ever had reason to use.

Email To Email Part Three

I really like outlook.com aka Hotmail. It has a clean interface and and very easy to navigate. Reading email on the web is very convenient and a lot of folks prefer reading email this way.

Outlook.com also provides email forwarding. To set up the forwarding, log in in to your outlook.com account and go to Settings by clicking on the gear icon by your name. Select Options.

In Options, look under the Managing your account section and select Email forwarding.

On the next screen add your email address where you want the mail forwarded and don’t forget to click Save!

Important, read this: Please sign in at least once every 365 days—otherwise your account looks inactive and could be deleted.

If you want to read your email in a program like Outlook or Thunderbird, don’t forward your email, just download it.

To see how, read ‘Set Up an email app with Outlook.com’.

You can also Import email from another email account to outlook.com.

Select the provider.

Depending on which provider you select you will need to follow the instructions to import your mail.

 

 

 

 

 

Next: Using Mail Store to import your messages to an email program.

Email To Email Part Two

I previously explained how I set up email forwarding with Gmail and the process is really working great.

However, I also have a Yahoo email account that I want to read in my email program, so I set up the forwarding with Yahoo Mail.

First I logged into my Yahoo email and clicked on Settings.



Then I selected ‘Add’ by Accounts.



On the next page I added all of my account information for the forwarded account, then clicked ‘Save’.



So easy!

 



If Yahoo saves a lot of legitimate email to your SPAM folder, you may want to use the POP option to download your mail into your email program instead of forwarding your mail.



Using the Download option you can choose how you want to deal with SPAM.

If you are not sure how to download your mail to your email program, look here at Yahoo’s instructions. Access your Yahoo Mail account with another mail program.

Next time: Email To Email Part Three with outlook.com

Email To Email

I admit it, I am an email junky. Way back when I used Windows XP I took advantage of the Identity feature in Outlook Express and setup each email account in a separate Identity. It was so handy! I had separate accounts for friends and family, a number of Yahoo Groups (different Groups, separate email addresses) and business emails.

Fast forward to Vista, Windows 7 and now Windows 8. No more Outlook Express! I could have multiple accounts in Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird and Outlook. But it seemed to be a bit unwieldy and finally I decided to consolidate emails accounts into just one or two accounts.

I could have just notified everyone of the new email address, but since there are so many folks I would have to notify that didn't seem to be a really good option for me.

So I decided to try email forwarding from one account to another. I have two Gmail accounts, so I set up forwarding in Gmail and sent both of my Gmail accounts to an outlook.com account.

Gmail’s forwarding

To setup forwarding in Gmail, go to Settings.



Next click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP link.



Now setup the forward by entering the email address  and selecting how you want Gmail to handle it.



Don’t forget to save the changes! (Scroll down!to find the Save Changes button.)

I like Gmail's SPAM filters, the best available anywhere. (I wonder, if Gmail can do it, why can't the rest?) But I don't particularly like Gmail's web interface and I hate the way they use 'Labels' instead of separate folders.

If you really like Gmail and want to read all your email there,  you can also setup importing an email address/addresses into Gmail.



You can also import all the mail and your contacts as well, Click add a POP3 mail account you own to start receiving mail from the imported account.



You will have to enter your credentials for the import.



Email forwarding has made my email life less complicated. Now I can read all my email in just one place.