after switching from my class 6 4gb sandisk card to my class 2 8gb sandisk card, i finally got it boot past the X screen and everything works like it should.
now if only i could figure out a way make the screen go back to portrait mode after it switches to landscape using the accelerometer
EDIT--
I think my 4gb card might actually be partially destroyed as it only gets about a 1mbps write speed while my 8gb gets 5-10mbps write speed
i guess its a good thing i have spare cards