I seem to have fried my iPad 1

Question

Actually it's my wife's iPad that I seem to have fried .....
Whilst syncing to her MacBookPro, the iPad got into a weird loop where it kept asking if I wanted to transfer the purchases made on the iPad to iTunes, I'd say yes, it would go away and do it then come back and ask the question again. It was also reverting the apps/pages layout that we were fine tuning for her.  Anyway, at some point I was doing a software update and pulled the wrong USB cable by mistake ....  big oops apprently !!
At first no matter what I did, I could only get the apple logo to show.  Holding down the power button for 10 seconds does not bring up the power slider, holding both does nothing, holding both for 30 seconds then letting go the power button does nothing more than cycle through black screen and apple logo ....
I seemed to have got the correct sequence of events including pluging it into the mac whilst holding the home button or something like that so that I now have the connect to itunes logo on the front screen of the iPad.  The problem now is that even when I try and restore the iPad to factory settings, iTunes goes away and does some stuff, the iPad seems to recycle and even shows the apple logo with a progress bar (empty) but then itunes eventually comes back (after "waiting for the iPad" for a few minutes) with an error that says;
"The iPad "iPad" could not be restored. An unknown error occured (9).  When I hit the "More Information" button, I get sent to an Apple Website that reccomends a whole set of procedures that I have followed twice now, without any more progress.
I have been scouring google from top to bottom trying to find a way to reload the firmware from scrathc, but I end up at Jailbreak options that I am not comfortable with.
My git feeling is that I have messed up the firmware .....  any help out there?
Thanks in advance
RIchard

Answer 1

Paul cb.  I get the same error message (9), which relates to an apparent dropping of the USB connection.  I have now tried 3 different usb cables on 2 different mac's, same result.
Reading as much as I can understand, there appears to be a dependance on an SHSH signature file. I have never Jailbroken any of my apple hardware, but there is much information that can be gleaned from the associated writings.
I am not a genius my any means, but it appears as though (iMhO) that somehow the files (or some of them) on the iPad have become corrupted and the all important SHSH file is not there. This causes iTunes to have no reference point for restoring the iPad.  Also, it is not possible to force a new firmware (Option click restore in itunes) without an SHSH file, this results in an error that says that the iPad is not eligible for this version ...  or something like that.
MY problem is that in Dubai we do not have an Apple Genius bar and that you guys and gals are the closest I will get to an Apple Genius.  The iPad was purchased for me in the States when my daughter was visting there so, I am pretty much sitting on a brick right now ...  (my wife has annexed my iPad 2 until I can fix her iPad 1 ....  sighs).
Unless there are any other tactics that you guys can suggest (without Jailbreaking) then I think I may be at the end of the road ..
Thanks for all your help and suggestions.
Best Regards
Richard
/Riger