I ran "make" command once to get all the build files, then traced the master dtsi file, enabled I2C along with SATA, and ran make --assume-new=FILE The image files were built and it booted without any problem at all, didn't have to change a thing this time, I see the beauty of building from source.
Thank you for being patient and walking me through it.
I have one final question. I ran make --assume-new=FILE because I thought just running make by itself will overwrite the dts files I modified, so I used this switch as I wasn't sure.
Is this the correct way of doing it, or just simply use make and my changes will still be carried into the image?
root@OpenWrt:/# dmesg | grep i2c
[ 1.769168] i2c /dev entries driver
root@OpenWrt:/# insmod i2c-dev
Failed to find i2c-dev. Maybe it is a built in module
Thank you. I'm sorry that I took some of your time just trying to figure out the image itself, but now everything's running smooth and this is the only thing that's left.