Pinebook Boot

[James Good]

This might only be slightly related to the topic of this thread.  On June 11, 2020, DHL finally delivered the PBP that I had ordered in late October or early November of 2019.  Initial power-on was uneventful and the passwords were set as suggested.  The PBP was not used, but was fully charged, for about a week then restarted.  This second start resulted in the PBP starting another system update or upgrade to the operating system.  The battery was full, so there was no real problem.  An hour or two later after the update or upgrade finished, the PBP restarted.  No problem.  However, the password I had set the week before was not recognized and there was no clear way to reset either the root or user password.  After several months of trying to turn the PBP back on and start learning how it does (and should) work, near total frustration set in and I attempted to load another version of Linux on it more in the effort to have a laptop that could be used than anything.  Multiple attempts by me with several different distros of Linux later the PBP still would not boot.  I asked a friend that has programming experience if he would like to try and he did.  After almost two weeks, he gave it back to me and said that he was not able to get any OS to load or boot to the internal drive (eMMC) and said that he was at a loss on how to proceed now.  He did say that he was able to look at what is on the internal drive and found fragments of TWO different operating systems.  Neither he nor I know how to proceed from here.  The desired goal would be to be able to have Manjaro loaded and operational on the PBP, but if that is not possible then a recent version of a Debian release could work.  But it almost looks like the laptop might need to be looked at in a shop that has the equipment necessary to completely erase then restore the internal drive to a 'factory new' condition.  I live in the USA and would prefer to send the laptop to a repair shop in the USA rather than have to send it to another country.
Please advise on what steps should be attempted next.
Thank you,
James Good