iPad2 locked up

[CanadianJohn]

My wife is visiting a relative in England, and her iPad has locked up with the "spinning wheel of death". Even after 24 hours turned off, the spinning wheel is still going. She has tried pressing start and sleep together, and other such tricks, but is unable to unlock it.

I'm not an iPad user - does anyone know what to do, apart from chuck the thing in the river.

Has she pressed home and the power button at the same time and kept pressed until it forces a reboot? If she's done this and its not worked then she needs to restore iOS.

She'll need to connect the iPad to a computer and iTunes. In iTunes select that iPad, then in the iPad summary click on restore. It'll go back to factory settings but she should be able to restore stuff from a cloud backup. She can certainly re download her apps for free.