It appears that a number of users trying to update their devices to iOS 5 are encountering an “error 3002” during the update process that prevents them from completing the upgrade. Fortunately, OS X Daily has found a solution, and I hope it will work for those of you that are experiencing this problem.
It’s not at all clear exactly what is causing this problem, but in order to fix it you must restore your device rather than simply updating it. Make sure you have a backup of your iOS device before continuing, as this will erase all data.
Before you proceed with this fix, make sure you have iTunes 10.5 installed on your Mac. Once you’re sure, launch iTunes, select your device from the left-hand column in iTunes, and click the “Restore” button.
Apple will warn you that this will reset your device to factory settings. Continue with the restore. iTunes will now do the rest of the work, and as long as Apple’s servers aren’t plastered with requests, you’ll end up with a successful installation of iOS 5!
To get your old data back, simply restore from your backup by once again selecting your device in the left-hand column in iTunes, right-clicking (or option-clicking, depending on how your Mac is set up) your device, selecting “restore from backup”, and choosing your most recent backup to restore to.
It’ll take a while for iTunes to reinstall all of your apps and content, but once it’s done, your device will be up and running.
Let us know if this works for you!
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