Imagine how disappointed I was when I had plugged in my brand new iPad 2 and only to realize that it simply cannot sync with my iTunes.
If you’re getting an error messages or weird stuff like:
- Device Timed Out error message
- Internal device error
- An unknown error has occurred 0xe800400c or -48
- Failing on particularly the song synchronization part – and claims that the songs cannot be found.
- An unusual long time to sync – compared to other apple products – and then just to fail right at the end.
- Occasionally after an error message, my 16GB iPad would show that it was only 4GB large. If you reconnect it, it goes back to normal.
I might have figured out how to fix this problem – at least for me. Your solution may be different of course. Here’s what I did on my Windows PC.
- Install/upgrade iTunes to the latest version
- Restore factory settings on the iPad
- Disable firewall (so iTunes can talk to apple) and also disable your anti-virus software. Yes, Microsoft Security Essentials counts. You want to disable anything that can get between iTunes and the iPad.
- Check to make sure that your BIOS is updated. My gigabyte P55 board was 7 versions out of date. This is at your own risk of course.
- Reconnected the iPad to a different USB spot that is not the front ports, or a USB hub, or USB on a monitor. Use the back ones – the ones directly attached to the motherboard.
My guess is that the USB isn’t providing enough power to charge or perform syncs with the iPad. My motherboard had a bios update that actually resolves the underpowered USB issue. After praying for a successful patch and a reboot later my ipad was finally syncing.
I really, really hopes this helps and saves some people some time out there.