alright, it looks like someone this problem at XDA and it was because they were using a 2 gb SD card just like me. it reads from an 8 gb SDHC card just fine, but unfortunately my phone killed mine. i think i am reading up on a method right now to make this work and i will report back.
add:
it wasn't a method to make it recognize it on a 2 gb card. *sigh*