problems using bootstrap/sys recovery

[tachyonshower]

i have recently rooted my X2 and now want to put on a custom rom. i was thinking eclipse, but thats irrelevant at the moment.

1) when i had first started to research new roms i came across a forum recommending ROM manager. i have attempted to run through the necessary procedures to back up old and install new ROM. I was alerted that the backup was a success. on the other hand, after i had transferred the eclipse.zip from my computer to my SD, i went to the install rom option, but it brought up the SDcard dir instead of the SDcard-ext. though, the drive that i dropped the zip into on win explorer was for the larger (the external) which i thought was the correct move. though, maybe it wasnt. i figured that the external was mounted for that reason (i.e. switching over to the charge usb option instead). when i moved the zip to the other drive i clicked on it through RM and it seemed to be able to go on as described, that is, there were check boxes for backup, etc, etc.

But upon further google searching, i found posts stating that RM shouldnt be used on my X2 since the bootstrap/recovery tool was actually necessary. so, i downloaded and installed the one from

DX2 Bootstrap Safe Download

2) after installing the recovery tool, i ran it and FOLLOWED THE DIRECTIONS. upon reboot, i was sent right through to the droid locked screen. no recovery screen. so, then i attempted again with the power-volume button combo, and then scrolled down to "android recovery", selected that with the volume up button, and came to the screen with little green andriod and the ! inside the triangle. the screen stayed the same for about 10 mins, and then i pulled the battery thinking that it had just froze.


my questions are: should i be able to use either of the two methods to correctly install a new ROM? is it possible that since i just recently bought my phone, that it was man'd with a fix to keep these hacks from working?

ive was basically up all last night trying to find a way to re-ROM my phone and ive found a lot of info, but it all seems to be pretty much the same thing that i was doing in 2) .

[tachyonshower]

ok. dumb thing to do i suppose, i.e. confuse AC power cord with leaving my phone tethered to the computer but switching usb from mass storage to charge only. it definitely enters the recovery tool with plugged into true AC cord