crisis averted, we were in panic mode for a moment there, we had a problem whereby the newest version of the firmware has disabled IP Routing and trunking from working at the same time
i couldnt do anything with procurve manager because it was previously installed on another machine, installed it on this one and i cant register it (ID is tied to an installation ID which i cant seem to change >_<)
didnt know about the secondary flash till a good search around, loaded the secondary flash and copied it over the primary, phewww! IP routing and trunking working together in harmony again
just to add insult to injury after finally getting this working we find our new iSCSI eonstor has a duff drive bay