Ipad2: Wipe iOS of device completly for "clean clean" install?

Hi everyone,

I bought a used ipad 2 (second version, wifi 16GB) on ebay for a relatively cheep price. So far, so good. Problem is, someone seems to have messed with the thing. I tried to return it, but things didn't exactly work out, to put it mildly.

I think they tried to jailbreak but messed up.

I've tried a lot of different ways to get a working iOS back on the thing:

Tried restore (ipad in restore mode) via Itunes

Tried restore (ipad in dfu mode) via itunes

Tried Apple Configurator

Error Codes vary, so I can't narrow down what the actual problem is.

Here finally my question: is there really no way to kind of format the thing and put a completely fresh iOS on top of a clean file system?

Any help is aprecciated: thanks!