it took me a try to figure it out, but i think this is what i did - i downloaded a program designed to reimage the ssd drive, but i have to take the ssd drive out to trigger the process. so, it errored out because there was no ssd drive to reimage. catch 22.

can i hotplug the ssd in when it's running? that doesn't seem like the best approach. then, can i format the ssd on reboot? i'd need to get to developer mode, which is what i can't do.

and, then this:

well, hotplug it is, then. fuck.