pdumont: thanks for replying. no it was right in the dash. was hooked up to the deck. i ended up figuring it out. the wire that i took a pic of in the first pics ended up being the att for the sat radio. the secondary harness was for the aux and the microsoft sync. the wire that i thought was for ignition 12v ended up being a data wire giving off only 1v. i guess the ecm is the one that controls the deck itself, not ignition. im guessing thats why youre able to play your radio when you turn your car off before you open your door and also probably why the reason why the deck wasnt being powered. i ended up having to run my own wire to ignition and grounding out the green parking brake wire so i could play dvds in motion. was a nightmare. glad its up and running now.