IPad mini iOS 8 firmware fails

Question

I successfully upgraded by iPhone 5 to iOS 8 and then followed with my iPad mini.
The iPad mini failed on firmware restore (lots of times). I took it to an Apple Store where it also failed.
Just out of warranty so told hardware problem - no luck.
I have tried to go back to iOS 7 manually and that also failed on firmware.
I cannot get at my backup prior to the upgrade as iTunes only recognises my iPad as in recovery mode and want to restore first.
I find it unacceptable that a 15 month old iPad can be rendered useless by an os update and be told 'out of warranty' no luck...
Any thoughts ?

Answer 1

All is not lost, you can get your iPad working again.  For some reason I had problems updating on my PC since 7.1.2 update, before that it worked great. Now it hangs up with each new update. So the key is manually download the firmware file, I put 3 sites below, worse case Google downloading iPad Firmware iOS8 and pick the right one for your pad.  Then Step 1 make sure you have the latest iTunes, Step 2 take the firmware and change the .zip to .IPSW.
Step 3 Hard reboot the ipad (Power button and Home Button), Step 4 if no SIM (Wi-Fi Only no problem).
Step 5 below is the KEY step, holding down the shift key and clicking on the restore in iTunes will ask you for the firmware file. Point to where you downloaded the file. The firmware should install, the ipad should reboot and then restore from your most recent backup.
If you have a ton of apps (600+) like me, plan on a couple of hours for the final restore to finish.  As I write this my iPad mini is up to 36 Apps of 600+
It works, and the other day while in the Apple store getting my iPhone 6+ I told one of the Genius guys how to do it as his device was messed up and he didn't know about this.  I really wish Apple would figure why this happens and fix it.  It almost seem like after downloading the firmware, it needs to go back to the Apple server for something, hangs and screws up the persons device. Once in that state unless you know to perform the Shift+Restore with downloaded firmware you are hosed.
Good luck and I hope this get you back running
Tom
How to Manually Restore iPhone Firmware
Upgraded iTunes to the latest version available and rebooted our computer v11.4
Downloaded the iPhone 4.0.1 firmware directly from Apple manually*** (Rename from .Zip to <IPSW)
Hard rebooted the iPhone (press and hold both home and the power button until an Apple logo appears)
Popped the sim card out of the handset
Connected the iPhone to our computer and when iTunes told us it had detected a device requiring a recovery we shift clicked restore** (held down shift on the keyboard and clicked the restore button) within iTunes*
We browsed to the location where we’d saved the firmware we downloaded in step 2 and left iTunes to do its thing with the iPhone
When the iPhone rebooted having successfully applied the firmware we re-inserted the sim card, waited for the iPhone to tell us it was activated
We ask iTunes to re-apply the most recent backup it had to the device, thus restoring configuration and content.
iOS Download Site for Firmware
http://www.ipswdownloader.com/
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2014/09/ios-8-download.html
http://www.icj.me/ios