Thanks for AF447 - yes, I saw it - hopefully there might be a FDR/CVR in the bits!
I've run into a problem with the usb drive which is going to take a while to sort! I had three back-ups there in 4 partitions - 2 laptops, (mine and Mrs B's), and my desktop. Now I've ***d a partition and I have only desktop and mine, so I'll be in doo doo. I'll reformat the whole thing as one, try the boot bit, and then probably re-backup. Might take a while.
Out of interest I have Vista running on my desktop now in VirtualPC