The thing is that no file is present under /boot. It's true for some other folders (I can't check rn) but the /home folder is fine. It's not a missing permission problem, `sudo ls /boot` yields the same result. I'll get back at you when I can check but this seemed to be happening on 2 different computer. I just assumed that /boot is meant to be empty and gets populated at boot (and it was just strange design), since I can't see any content in /boot when mounting the sd card externally even when the box boots fine. From inside the box when it boots fine I can access the content of /boot though.
I'll try to get my hands on a serial to usb cable, though this will just help to figure out why it doesn't boot, not why I can't access the content on the sd card externally.