It was a problem with the card reader as earlier stated, this was confirmed by the support staff at Technomate.
Even if you flashed it with the original firmware with RS232 or usb stick it would not have made any difference as it was the bootloader that was stopping the box from booting not the firmware. These boxes are not designed to be flashed using RS232, thats what the miniweb function was there for.
I tried the suggestion of using RS232 and a hyperterminal in ymodem mode and it didn't make a scrap of difference as that was not what was causing the issue. Can't remember who it was who pm'd me with the link but like i said it didn't make a scrap of difference as the problem was a hardware issue, not software.
Nano