General :: CWM Recovery Boot Loop Will Not Accept ROM Install

I've been working on this phone from start to finish about 9 hours, over two days..I've Google just about every combination of words to do with the title and everything in between but nothing seems to come close to what i actually need to do as nothing works.

i have an LG Optimus 2x / p990, it had ICS on it but was far too slow to handle this, it needs something a bit less hardware intensive to run smoothly, so i went ahead an found cyanogenmod stable...7.2 i installed sdk after an hour of finding out how it works i finally got adb and fast boot working.

to cut a 9 hour story short, I've managed to get myself to the point where i wiped the phone of everything but CWM partitioned for ics via the AIO software but CWM will not let me install any ROM onto the phone. to be more precise it says i have installed CM 7.2 successfully! (I've tried this via the CWM via external SD card and side load) i reboot the phone it's as if I've never done a thing, no trace or suggestion I've even attempted it on the internal card... nothing

i'm at the point now where i'm quite happy to just have my phone back now and install ICS 404 but can't use the LG kdz install software as the pc doesn't see the phone as an LG p990 because it's recovery and i can only get it to come up as internal and external memory cards.

Can get my phone working will do, preferably the CM 7.2 if not back to ICS 404? i should have backed up but i had no idea it could be so complicated just to put an OS on a tiny computer. I've tried that exit recovery.zip thing and it did nothing :/