[Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MrTripStack:
I recently had an issue with my Nexus 7 freezing constantly and I tried to perform a factory reset through the tablet's setting itself instead of the recovery menu now it seems to be stuck in some sort of loop when I try to start it. This tablet is non-rooted and completely stock, btw.

When the tablet turns on, it boots into a screen that shows an Android with a spinning blue cage on his chest, the word "Erasing..." and a bar at the bottom, which isn't actually filling to show any progress and is instead full blue with these lines going through it.

After a few minutes of that, the blue cage thing and the bar stop moving and the tablet freezes, bringing me to a screen with an Android laying on his back with a red exclamation point above his open chest.

When I press Power and Vol+, it brings me to the recovery menu, with this at the bottom:

Also, I don't know if this is important or not, but it says Android system recovery <3e> and KTU84P at the top of the recovery menu.

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_install

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_install

E: Failed closing dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/MSC (I/O error)

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

Being that I'm in the recovery menu, I have the option to reboot, apply update from ADB, wipe data/factory reset, and wipe cache partition. Being as it's constantly telling me that it either can't open or can't mount /cache, I thought wiping the cache partition would help, but that also gives me a bunch of fails:

-- Wiping cache...

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

Formatting /cache...

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_install

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_install

E: Failed closing /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/MSC (I/O error)

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

After that, I attempted to do a wipe from this menu, which also gave the same errors:

-- Wiping data...

Formatting /data...

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

Formatting /cache...

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_install

Data wipe complete.

Formatting /cache...

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_log

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_log

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_install

E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_install

E: Failed closing /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/MSC (I/O error)

E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

After all that jazz and long wall of failure, it brings me back to the recovery menu. Even with all the failing, I thought it did something since it said "Data wipe complete", but now trying to "reboot system now", it brings me to a solid black screen as if the tablet locked up or just turned off. Turning it back on again, it shows the word "Google" before displaying the original screen of the android with the blue spinning cage and the word "Erasing", effectively completing the loop.

My warranty obviously expired ages ago now and I'm hoping somebody here can help.