My iPad is bricked! It won’t turn on or do anything else. What now?

If your iPad is truly DOA, you could repurpose it as a serving platter for a nice cheese. But odds are, reviving a seemingly dead iPad or iPhone is just a matter of restoring it in iTunes.

If you regularly sync your device to a Mac (you do that, right?), the best course of action is to restore from your latest backup. To do that, connect your device and Control-click its name in your iTunes sidebar. From the menu, choose Restore from Backup. In the next window, choose the most recent backup for that device and click Restore. After that, your device should be up and at ’em again.

Restore from Backup will magically restore your iPhone to robust health.

If the device won’t restore or you don’t have a backup, iTunes can also restore your device to its factory settings. You’ll have to spend more time getting things back the way you like them, but on the plus side, your device will have a brand-new lease on life when you’re done. To start a Restore, select your device in the sidebar, click on the Summary tab, and hit the Restore button.