recliq & jamiroo thanks for the help. I confirmed my problem was that my eiri.conf file was not being correctly saved. due to running fw 4.2 full version, once I booted in 4.2 ext3, everything worked without a hitch. although b-rad notes in the custom options file there is a way to make it work with eiri.conf at root of drive during boot, but I couldn't get it to work that way. at least we know it works without a hitch running ext2
KAD