IE 4000 Switch configuration registers stuck at 0xF

[Vamboozer]

I am able to login to my IE-4000 switch if I follow these steps:
- Press "Express Setup" button for about 15s while power on

- Entering "flash_init" and then "boot"

However, if I power it normally or use the reload command, the configuration file doesn't load and my password is invalid. When I'm logged in as mentioned above I enter this command:
Switch# show version | include Configuration
and I get:
Configuration register is 0xF

Everything I read online says that it should be 0x2102, but perhaps this doesn't apply to the IE 4000. 
I've tried:

confreg 0x2102

configreg 0x2102
config-register 0x2102
all from the bootloader prompt, the main host prompt (Switch#), and the global config prompt (Switch(config)#). None of these commands are recognized from any of these locations. It seems I can't change this, but then how do I configure the IE-4000 to automatically load my config file? If it is a problem with my config file, then why does it work when I load it in manually via the bootloader path as mentioned above?

[Leo Laohoo]

Post the complete output to the command "sh boot".

[Vamboozer]

Here is the general output of the "sh(ow) boot" command:

BOOT path-list : flash:ie4000-universalk9-mz.152-4.EA9

Config file : flash:/config.text

Private Config file : flash:/private-config.text

Enable Break : yes

Manual Boot : I've tried both yes and no

Allow Dev Key : yes

HELPER path-list : (blank)

Auto upgrade : yes

Auto upgrade path : (blank)

Boot optimization : enabled

NVRAM/Config file buffer size : 524288

Timeout for Config Download: 0 seconds

Config Download via DHCP: disabled (next boot: disabled)

Also, to provide a bit more context to the situation, we're in this mess because we had a cisco certified engineer quit right before we were scheduled to move a complex server based system with a bunch of switches and he changed all the passwords on his way out the door. Some of these passwords weren't correct so we are in this situation because we needed to create a new password to get in. This process worked fine on other cisco switches, but the IE-4000 has this boot configuration problem. I hope this provides some helpful clarity to the situation.

-Marshall