there was an os released by a member of droid x forums that is basically just a slimmed down version of linux, you burn it to a disk and then choose to run it at boot. it's designed for the droid x but i think it could be modified to work for the droid 2. and yeah it would be a lot easier. if you cant restore a droid in linux, i'd wager to say it can't be saved.
If he doesn't want to linux(which is all I use) try the rsdlite tricks. Start rsd then plug phone in or plug phone in then start rsd. Either way exit out of rsd, right click the icon, then select run as admin. This must be done everytime u open rsd. However, linux is simply failproof as spaz suggested.