IPad – Many apps missing after restoring iPad backup to migrate to iPad 2

ipadmigrationrestore

Needing to migrate an original iPad user to an iPad 2, I used the backup and restore mechanism in iTunes (on a PC)

However, the following steps resulted in many of the apps being missing on the destination device:

  1. Backed up an original iPad to iTunes on a PC
  2. Factory-reset an iPad 2
  3. Connected the iPad 2 to the same PC, and restored from backup

Some time later, the iPad 2 claimed to be set up, but many of the apps were missing. Instead of there being 3 screen-fulls of apps on the restored device, there was only one, and this was mostly the original Apple apps.

iTunes didn't report any errors throughout this process.

What can I do to fix this?

Best Answer

The original iPad was on iOS 5.0, and the destination was iOS 5.1.

I ended up having to upgrade the original iPad to iOS 5.1, and then repeating the whole backup & restore operation.

After this, all the expected apps were present on the destination device.

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