iPad Installed iOS5 beta 7 OTA Stuck in Recovery Mode [FIX]

Disclaimer: I don’t believe I am in violation of any terms with Apple because I am not revealing anything specific to iOS 5 beta in regards to features or the like. It’s just a fix, and intended for registered Apple developers only.

So, as an excited iPad2 (and iPhone4, and MacBook Pro, and Apple TV) user (and registered developer), when I heard about the iOS 5 beta 7 OTA update, I was quick to just tap my way on my iPad to the OTA install. Yeah, not so smart!

Totally my fault – I decided to quickly apply the update though I hadn’t synced in a week nor did I have my MacBook Pro with me. So when the update was “complete”, the iPad was unfortunately stuck in recovery mode (where all you can see is that little image of a cord, and the message to connect to iTunes). Wonderful!

Note: This is BETA, I shouldn’t expect everything to just work, and I shouldn’t have even thought to dare update without having an up-to-date sync.

Anyhow, the following day, I return home from work, get out my MacBook Pro, and decide to fix my temporarily bricked iPad 2. Thinking I just needed to “sync” it with iTunes, I plug it in.

Uh-oh: The iPad is stuck in recovery mode! I begin to get nervous. I figure, I might as well restore – and click the restore button, to realize that it was going to try and install iOS 4.3. And I know THAT would not work because I’ve already updated to iOS 5 beta (which is a different firmware version).

So here is the fix if you attempted to update your iPad OTA to iOS 5 beta 7:

1. Make sure you have the recent version of iTunes beta installed from Apple’s Developer Portal
2. Place your iPad in DFU mode:
3. Press and hold both the power and home screen buttons at the same time
4. After 10 seconds pass, release the Power button but continue to hold the Home button for another 3-5 seconds
5. When in DFU mode, your iPad screen will stay completely black. If you see an Apple logo or otherwise you did not enter DFU mode.
6. Once this is completed iTunes will again say that it has discovered your iPad in recovery mode.
7. Hold down the control key while you click on the restore button in iTunes. This should allow you to choose the specific IPSW file to restore to. I just went back to beta 6 (which I had to download from the developer portal).
8. iTunes will begin restoring and syncing your iPad.
9. Then, (if you dare lol [I did with no problems]), attempt to update to beta 7 OTA or otherwise.

Luckily, my last sync was only a week old, so I lost only a few downloaded apps that I re-installed. No biggie.

Hope this helps anyone with the same problem.

Thanks for reading!