Apple iPad Mini 4 (S&D) (Open Box)

My wife and I bought this for my mother in law last year for Christmas. We set it up for her, and her mother forgot the passcode she set literally the next day (she has MS, and her memory is really foggy). Admittedly, I probably should have written down all the info for it at the time, but hindsight is 2020.. Anyhow, since the iPad hadn't really been used like at all, we never knew if there was any defects, being that it is renewed. I recently tried to follow the steps to plug it in and just completely restore the thing. A quick and simple guide on the Apple website made it look like a breeze. However, when I tried, and it was connected, I was given an error message stating there was something wrong with the iPad and to just restore (which is what I wanted to do anyway). However, every time I tried, I kept getting error message after error message. Fast forward a week, and I took it to the Apple Store for a technician to help, and they were unable to as well. Their systems wouldn't find any way to restore it either. So now I'm just stuck here with a $150 frisbee basically.. all because I didn't test it out when we got it, or written down my mother in law's info. Long story short tho, there is something corrupt in the system anyway that won't allow it to be updated/restored. So I guess this is kind of a blessing, because at least now I know it's defective lmao. Too bad I waited a year (because we were gonna just buy her another new tablet for xmas) to find out it was defective.. far far far past the return date.