Welp, I’m calling it gents: reinstalling SteamOS from a micro SD recovery image leaves me on the same godforsaken frozen logo, so a full re-image it is. The aim of cloning was keeping all my stuff but fuck me I guess lol it’s more important that this highly expensive machine works again. If a full re-image doesn’t work then I am officially fresh the fuck out of ideas. Thanks to all the commenters who came with advice, y’all are awesome

I’ve seen other folks on this board saying that a new update seems to have put them in the same lousy position, hanging on the logo eternally. I’m wondering, does this mean I have to pick up a USB-C stick and put a recovery image on it? I cloned my drive with an enclosure when I swapped them out so I didn’t lose my stuff. Even went into BIOS mode and tried Battery Storage Mode and no dice once I plugged it back in.