A think to note is that it was completely salvageable. I believe it'd be just a matter of running sudo apt-get install pop-desktop and he'd be back on track. Meanwhile, on windows, download a sound card driver from manufacturers site, click "install", and your OS won't ever boot again, not in safe mode, not in recovery from live usb, not anyhow, because it always tries to load all drivers, including broken ones for some reason.