i figured it out.. i went into all the rom folders and i changed the labels of two folders box2dfront and images. i swapped thier names so the the 2dbox art would load in place of the screenshots. now browsing through the game list displays the 2dbox art..
thank you for your help @ RustyMG
do i mark this as solved or something? someone with this issue may find this useful
@rustymg . thanks for your reply.. that would be an improvement and a last resort case scenerio. if there is no possible way to just switch it to displaying box art first. when i scraped all the box art i chose 2D boxes and screenshot as to try and save space and lower the amount of time scraping. as it was it took 9 hours to scrape box art and screenshots for 1100 games. albeit it may have went faster if i did it differently. i think it was restarting when it stopped and i re started it. the last time it stopped i got a little wiser and just selected the last system it was on. 
. this a pic of the program i used i had the drive from the computer plugged into mine.
since im not seeing a option to switch the images displayed from screenshot to box art, is their a config file i can edit? am i missing something obvious. ? the whole system is super awesome and i cannot expect every feature i want to just exist. if you know more about how recalbox is deciding what images to load in conjunction with the list. i would greatly apreciate the input.
thank you for your time
is there a way to set the default games view to 2d boxes? im setting this up for my ex Wifes son, he is 7. the defualt configuration shows the console and a list to the left. on the right is a screenshot and info. he recognizes games easier from their boxes. can i get it to show the 2D boxes as the list? showing title and description by choosing 2D boxes. or could i possibly have the 2D box shown on the right instead of the screenshot? i have the 2D boxes for most roms
thank you kindly for your time.