Right..........

After approx 6hrs work - couldn't get vista of any flavour to work at all despite a number of reinstalls of drivers etc. Tried running VM XP with similar fruitless results. Downloaded ubuntu iso image and ran it on laptop which nearly fried due to some issue with linux not recognising the systems fans. Next ran ubuntu image on desktop and after eventually working out the firmware image needs to be in the home folder 2 minute job.

Wish I'd started with ubuntu but as a linux virgin it looked simpler to go windows - I'll know if it happens again........

Thanks for the help
Gav