Death and ressuration of my galaxy tab

Recently I did the factory data reset on my original Samsung Galaxy tab (GT-P1000). After the reset I found out that The market app that comes with the factory image did not work any more. It took me to the terms and conditions page of the play store with no way of accepting it. I tried to login to the play store using web browser and download something to force update the market app. I can login but play store did not recognized my galaxy tab , so I can't download anything.My next attempt is to update the firmware through Samsung kies hoping market app updates along with it. As I have upgraded my PC to windows 8 recently I need to download and install the kies from Galaxy tab support site. After installation it asked me to do an update cause there is newer version, so I did. But when I connect my tab , it was not recognized giving the error that says Device not recognized by Kies 2. I thought it was the update, so I uninstalled it then redownload and install now without updating when prompted and get the same error. Then I look for installer for older version of Kies especially 1. Something. Official Samsung site doesn't have it but I found it on some forum. After installation it detected my Galaxy tab but UI is old and doesn't support firmware updates for android device s. I let it update to latest version and this time it still recognized my Galaxy tab' however the firmware update option is grayed out. Either my Galaxy tab is up to date or Samsung does not support it any more, I was run out of official ways to get the market app updates to play store. So I decided to side load the play store app directly from unofficial sources. I googled for play store apk and I found it easily enough. I side loaded the apk and voilà! I now have the play store on my tab and can download apps from it. Then it occur to me that since I have gone unofficial, why not go all the way to install a custom ROM so that I can have the latest Android version. I looked for the latest stable custom ROM for my Galaxy tab and found instruction s for Sapir-CM10Based-20120925-NIGHTLY-p1-erezak.zip at http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-tab-gt-p1000-gsm-android-4-1-1-cyanogenmod-10-cm10-nightly-unofficial-112424/ . The instructions say that I need to have clockworkmod recovery installed but no instructions as to how. I googled for it and found form the clockworkmod site that I can install it from the app called ROM manager. So I look at the help and found out that the app does not support the original galaxy tab. The only way to install the clockworkmod recovery on P1 galaxy tab is through Odin. So I followed the instructions found here http://theunlockr.com/2012/05/07/how-to-root-and-flash-the-clockworkmod-recovery-on-the-galaxy-tab-p1000-running-gingerbread/ to get the clockworkmod installed. As the instructions mentioned I maked sure that repartition check box is unchecked. It work as expected and now I got the rooted galaxy tab with clockwork mod recovery installed, a prerequisites for installing custom ROM. The ease of the process encouraged me. I proceed to download the ROM and the Google apps, but the links are dead. I googled for another and found cm-10-20120829-EXPERIMENTAL-p1-PREVIEW.zip for a ROM and gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip and now all per requisite are met I am ready.I copied the download files into the internal SD card and reboot the tab into recovery mode as per instructions. Here I remembered to make the nandriod backup of the current ROM just in case something goes wrong. I then reboot into clockworkmod recovery again and followed the instructions to flash the custom ROM. All seems well but after reboot it was stuck in a boot loop. At first I did not panic as I have made the backup earlier. I power off the galaxy tab and reboot into clcokworkmod recovery mode and tried to restore the backup. After reboot it now stuck at galaxy tab logo. I tried to flash the ROM again but now it says the signatures verification fails. I tried to download the official ROM and flash it. But the ROM I found was in PIT format and I can't flash it from the clockworkmod. The only way to flash it is from Odin so I search for the instructions and followed it. The instructions say if I am running custom ROM I should check repartition check box. I did and it failed half way giving E:failed to mount data, and after reboot struck at Samsung logo. From now on whatever I tried give the same error. I tried flashing the custom ROM. Flash the pit from Odin again. Clear cache. Factory reset all failed with same error. I googled the web for the symptoms and what I found on the forums are not encouraging. They say that my data partition has become corrupted and since all my tools can only access system partition there is nothing I can do. All I can do is bring it to the Samsung service center I have bricked my tab. I kept on looking and at last I found some glimmer of hope in one forum saying the adb and the fastboot can be use to format the data partition. I decided to let it rest or some days since I've become too emotionally involved and tired. So next holiday on chirstmas I tied to test the theory. So I downloaded and install the android sdk and sdk tools. After Installation I tried to connect my tab in fastboot mode to no avail. I tried to list the devices in both adb and fastboot but my device is not recognized. Then I tried to see if it is recognized in kies and odin, kies recognized the device but odin doesn't. Later it turns out the problem with the odin was that I am now using a different usb port then before.. I tired to use the same usb port and odin recognized the device but not fastboot or adb. Now I am at my wit's end. In my desperation I did a lot of things with Odin that I don't exactly remember basically flashing ROM and pit together and all sort of combinations I tried to redo everything from the start. So first I flashed the clockworkmod kernel again, but the problem seems to exist. Nothing I tried worked then I noticed that the error message has changed back to invalid signature when I tried to flash the custom ROM. So I thought my rom image was corrupted and tried to find another rom. I found aokp_sgt7-p1-jb_20121122.zip from aokp site. Tried to flash this rom and stil got the boot loop
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Unfortunately my original post somehow lost and I am too lazy to retype :) the gist is you have to flash the image twice if you run into boot loop because the file system changed. Have fun