Stephen
My suggestion to you would be:

1. Boot from the CD and get a working configuration for the X server.
2. Copy the configuration to your HD install by mounting the HD and copying the file /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to the HD. These steps in a console window (the clam shell icon on the taskbar)
Could I do the samething with the netwok card, since I get to configure network with the cd but I can get it working with the HD. I have finished copied on a HD, when I run netcardconfig it says "no supported network cards found"...

I still very new to linux