Thanks for the play by play.
Are you wanting to keep sda2, the swap file? I assume it’s a partitioned area for your home folder.
I wish I knew more. Prior to the shop press, all I know to do at this moment is to copy your data to another drive and then reformat the drive. Either via installing a new distro, or remove it from the laptop and reformat using another computer.
What about trying another distro. If you have success, then try PopOS again.
There’s comments from an idiot. Rots of ruck!