ipad stuck on "ipad is diabled please connect to itunes"

[madeirabhoy]

wife's colleague's ipad is stuck on "ipad is disabled" because he got his password wrong too many times.

from googling, apple's instructions are to put it into recovery mode, then use itunes to restore it to factory settings.

ive tried this both from OS X and from windows 10, and each time, the ipad goes into restore mode fine, itunes brings up the option to restore it, starts downloading the software which will take hours, and then after 5 or 10 minutes, gives up, says theres a problem downloading.

 

[madeirabhoy]

looks like its a 'feature'. from the apple site on the instructions:

iTunes will download software for your device. If it takes more than 15 minutes, your device will exit recovery mode and you'll need to repeat steps 2 and 3.


which given that the last time it said it'd take over an hour....