[Q] Stuck on recovery after factory reset topic

I have a nexus 7 (2012) wi-fi model.
I loaded the factory image for 5.02 from google using their instructions and the device started up afterwords just fine. But using it with 5.02, it kept getting stuck/frozen and I had to hard-restart it a lot. So I decided to do a factory reset. I went into stock recovery and I selected factory reset. It formatted /data and /cache but after that it could not mount /cache or anything in it. Eventually it restarted back into recovery on its own and re-formatted /data and /cache but again gave the same errors and landed me on the recovery menu. Trying to "reboot system now" or "reboot to bootloader" just shuts it down. I then need to long press power to start it back up, but when it does, it again formats /data and /cache, goes through the errors and lands me in the recovery menu. Trying to get to the bootloader by pressing power and volume down results in the same (loads recovery where it formats /data and /cache and goes through the errors). And with no bootloader I can't even reflash anything.

Please help